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From the Library of 
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Begueathed hy hin to | 
the Hibrary of 


Princeton Chenlogical Seminary 
BT 121 .A77 1893 
Arthur, William, 1819-1901. 


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THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


OR, THE TRUE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY 


BY 
vs 
WILLIAM ARTHUR, A.M. 


AUTHOR OF 


“THK SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT”? “ITALY IN TRANSITION” 
‘THE POPE, THE KINGS, AND THE PEOPLE” ETC. 


, 
- 


WITH 
A NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR 


AND AN INTRODUCTION BY 


Toe Rey. Wittiam M. Taytor, D.D. 


NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 


1893 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 
» 
HARPER & BROTHERS, 


In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


TO 


THE REV. BISHOP SIMPSON 


AND 
THE REV. DR. McCOSH 
TWO DIVINES 


WHO WELL ILLUSTRATE THE LABORS AND THE STUDIES 


OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY IN AMERICA 
TWO FRIENDS 


WHOM I LOVE AND HONOR 


THE NEW AMERICAN EDITION IS 


Medicated 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https //archive.org/details/tongueoffireortrOOarth 2 


PREFACE 
(To the American Edition) 


Tue American publishers request from me some 
introduction or supplement to a new edition of 
this volume—an edition called for, in part, by the 
fact that the work has been placed on the list of 
studies of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific 
Circle. This request reaches me in the city of 
New York, where, nearly five-and-twenty years 
ago, under the hospitable roof of Mr. W. E. 
Dodge, Senior, I employed in correcting the sheets 
sent to me from England a good portion of the 
silent days passed during convalescence from an 
attack of fever. It is to that attack, and to my 
journey of 1855 in the United States, that allusion 
is made in the Preface to the Original Edition, 
when it is said that “ the work has been interrupted 
by travel and sickness, and at one time seemed 
likely to be cut short by death.” For five weeks, 
at Urbana, in Ohio, I had lain ill in the home of 
the late Dr. Mosgrove, who, having been called to 
the bedside of a perfect stranger, with a view sim- 


vi PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 


ply to professional aid, had insisted on removing 
that stranger in order to tend him under his own 
roof. During the five weeks, he, with his excellent 
wife, and his son, Dr. James Mosgrove, lavished 
upon the patient such care as might have been 
bestowed on a son of the house. 

When the fever was already coming on I had, at 
Sandusky, before the Conference of North Ohio, 
preached on the theme of the book, and thus were 
its thoughts and images the last that followed me 
from the active world into the silence of the sick- 
room. Naturally, while in that room, my mind 
often turned to the partly written volume, of 
which, while the earliest pages were in type, other 
portions were in manuscript, and yet others still 
lying undisclosed in the hidden yet conscious 
springs of thought. Often, when revolving what 
I seemed to have to say, did it appear to me as if 
the Disposer of life and death would spare me to 
say it; and I have been told by my companion on 
that tour, Dr. Robinson Scott, who for some twenty 
_ days or so watched by my bedside, that I said to 
him, ‘‘ The Master has yet work for me to do.” 

Before the volume had been long issued, illness — 
in another form drove me away from England. 
While wandering in Egypt, Arabia Petreea, and 
Palestine, with slender hope of again preaching or 
speaking in public, more than once, as if sent to 
cheer me, came intimations that here and there 


PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION Vii 


my gracious Master was deigning to employ the 
book as His instrument of doing some good to my 
fellow-servants. Subsequently, on various jour- 
neys in the United Kingdom or on the continent 
of Europe, persons have greeted me, declaring that 
they felt constrained to acknowledge that the 
reading of the “Tongue of Fire” had been to them 
a means of blessing. These testimonies sometimes 
reached me in places where I should least have 
expected them, and occasionally came from persons 
whom I should have supposed little likely to read 
any book of mine. In the course of my present 
journey on this continent I have not been in any 
part of the United States or Canada without being 
made glad by similar testimonies. To these it 
might, perhaps, sometimes appear that I listened 
coldly, just because the things said were of a na- 
ture to compel me to hide my feelings behind a veil 
of silence in order that I might inwardly thank 
God. More precious, perhaps, than testimonies 
addressed to me personally have been those which 
came from mission fields that I had never visited, 
or from distant portions of Africa or Australasia 
which I cannot hope ever to see. Touching as 
such testimonies have been when proceeding from 
a soldier, a sailor, or a busy man of commerce, 
they have been more touching when proceeding 
from a minister who thought that either in his 
preparatory studies or in the course of his labors 


Vill PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 


the “Tongue of Fire’’ had helped him to serve 
with more success, and yet more touching still 
when proceeding from a missionary whose toils 1t 
had helped to cheer or stimulate. But, above all, 
when some fruitful winners of souls, alluding to 
revivals of religion witnessed in their own spheres 
of labor, have declared their belief that the influ- 
ence of this work had more or less contributed to 
the blessed result, my cup has run over. 

Iam not able, with accuracy, to state what is 
the number of languages into which the volume 
has been translated; but I believe that the Welsh, 
Kafir, Italian, and French are not the only ones. 

If the work hag been in any degree useful in the 
past, no reason can exist why it should not be 
equally or even more so.in the future. ‘The Lord, 
who has graciously granted to it His blessing, will 
not now withdraw that blessing. Its theme is one 
of interest as enduring as are the relations of the 
spirit of man to the spirit of God. May this new 
edition go forth with a fresh mandate of useful- 
ness from Him who worketh all good. May every 
one who shall peruse these pages rise from them 
refreshed for his task in the Church; and may he, 
endued with new power, seek and behold triumphs 
of our Redeemer’s kingdom such as will cause him 
to rejoice with exceeding great joy. 


NEw YORK, June 18th, 1880. 


INTRODUCTION 


JOHN THE Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, 
gathered together the scattered rays of Old Testa- 
ment prediction into these two sayings, which will 
be forever associated with his name, “ Behold the 
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
world!” and “ He shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost, and with fire.” The first is the Gospel of 
atonement; the second is the Gospel of regenera- 
tion; and both together give a comprehensive 
summary of all that Jesus brings to men. The 
one describes what Christ has done for us, in giv- 
ing Himself a sacrifice for human guilt; the other 
depicts what He does iv us, in the renovation and 
energization of human character. The first was 
completed, “once for all,’ upon the cross; the 
other is repeated by Him in the case of every new 
convert whom He creates unto good works, “ which 
God hath before ordained that he should walk in 
them.” Naturally, therefore, we might suppose © 
that the second would have the greatest promi- 
nence, and the highest appreciation in the present 


x INTRODUCTION 


day. But, though we are living under the dis- 
pensation of the Spirit, it is remarkable that the 
work of the Holy Ghost has not received anything 
like the attention which it demands and deserves. 

Few sermons are preached upon it—few treatises 
are written upon it—it does not enter as it ought 
to do into the thoughts and prayers of the people 
of God; and in this, perhaps, more than in most 
other things, we may find the explanation of the 
comparative feebleness and inefficiency of modern 
piety. Whatever, therefore, tends to turn the eyes 
of the members of the Church of Christ to the 
great Pentecostal Gift, which has never been re- 
voked, and which is still as available for us as it 
was for those on whom it was first bestowed, must 
be fraught with blessing both to believers generally 
and to the world at large. And as sometimes the 
design of a painter may be better seen from his 
first outline than from his finished work, so we 
may perhaps obtain a simpler view of the nature 
of the Spirit’s work from the words of the Baptist 
than from the fuller revelations of the Evangelists 
and Apostles. 

“He shall bangs you with the Holy Ghost, 
and with fire.”” ‘The two expressions refer to one 
and the same thing. Some, indeed, with Neander, 
would affirm that the Holy Ghost is, so to say, the 
element for the baptism of believers, and that the 
fire is that for the baptism of unbelievers; as if 


INTRODUCTION xi 


the Baptist had said, “ When the Messiah cometh, 
he will baptize all men; those who receive Him, 
he will baptize with the Holy Ghost, and those 
who reject Him he will baptize with fire.” But, 
though that view receives apparent confirmation 
from the words, ‘‘ Whose fan is in his hand, and 
he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his 
Wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the 
chaff with unquenchable fire,” there is one insu- 
perable objection to it in the fact that John’s 
language fairly implies that all those who were to 
be baptized were to be baptized both with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire. He explains the one 
blessing by the two clauses—the one literal, and 
the other figurative. As in His conversation with 
Nicodemus the Lord says, “ Except a man be born 
of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God,” so John describes the one 
experience by the two expressions. The figure is 
added to give definiteness to our conception of the 
reality; and thus, like the pictures in the stereo- 
scope, the two expressions are blended into one 
finely relieved and beautifully distinct represen- 
tation of that which they set before us; to wit, 
that the gift of the Holy Ghost is a baptism, and 
that it is a baptism with fire. 

It isa baptism, and so marks our initiation into 
the kingdom of God; for whatever other ideas may 
be associated with baptism, there is no doubt that, 


Xil INTRODUCTION 


as practised by John, it marked the beginning of 
a4 new course. So regeneration is needed for 
entrance into the new life. The great law is, 
“Ye must be born again.” Oh that must! How 
it levels all human pride! How it cuts at the root 
of all mere externalism, and lays open the depray- 
ity that is working like leaven in every heart! 
And yet how comforting it is also, for “must” 
implies“ may.” If I must be born again, I may be 
born again; and He who uttered the awful and 
humiliating sentence is ready to bestow upon me 
the Holy Ghost, so that the great work shall be 
accomplished in me. 

It isa baptism, and so marks our consecration 
to the Lord. Under the ancient law, the things 
which were specially set apart to the service of 
Jehovah were washed with water, and, in like 
manner, the Christian who has received the Holy 
Ghost regards himself as not his own but God’s. 
Where that Spirit dwells, He marks everything 
with the name of Jehovah. Where He abides, 
selfishness dares not enter. Where He is enshrined 
in the heart, the conscience responds with eager 
sensitiveness to Paul’s appeal: “ What! know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost 
which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are 
not your own? For ye are bought with a price: 
therefore glorify God in your body, and in your 
spirit, which are God’s.” 


INTRODUCTION Xili 


But it is a baptism “with fire,” and that im- 
plies, in the first place, that it purifies the soul. 
It might seem, indeed, that the figure of water 
is enough to bring out before us this cleansing 
efficacy of the Holy Ghost. But there are two 
characteristics of His work which can properly be 
symbolized only by fire. The first is its searching- 
ness. Fire finds out everything that is inflammable, 
and consumes it forthwith; so the Holy Spirit 
burns everything that isimpure. Nothing escapes 
His ordeal. Whatever of “wood, hay, or stub- 
ble” there may be in the character or heart is 
not merely charred, but destroyed by His flame. 
He spares no darling lust. He misses no treasured 
secret. He passes by no hidden pride. In the 
proportion in which He is in the soul, sin is burnt 
out of it. Furthermore, the continuousness of 
His work is suggested to us by the element of fire. 
One washes, and forthwith he is clean; but the 
operation of fire is not momentary but constant, 
and so the work of the Holy Spirit goes on while 
life in the believer lasts. He burns while He 
blesses; nay, He burns in order to bless; and so it 
is a solemn thing to receive this heavenly gift. 

And, to mention no more, it is a baptism with 
fire, and so marks the communication of energy to 
the soul. “Ye shall be endued with power from 
on High;” and again, “Ye shall receive power 
after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you;” 


XiV INTRODUCTION 


thus did the Lord Himself translate to His disciples 
the language of the Baptist. And we cannot 
wonder that fire is taken for a symbol of power. 
Who that has looked upon a terrible conflagration 
as it marches on its devouring way, but has felt 
overwhelmed by the presence of an agent so much 
mightier than himself? So when, on the Day of 
Penticost, “ cloven tongues like as of fire’ sat upon 
each of the disciples, the meaning was that, by 
the burning earnestness and fiery force of their 
speech, they should be the means of carrying for- 
ward the work of God in the world in the face of 
fiercest opposition. Their words would be “in 
demonstration of the Spirit and of power;” not the 
power of miracles, for that was only a temporary 
possession in the Church; not the power of stately 
rhetoric or scholastic logic, for their speech never 
was “with enticing words of man’s wisdom;” not 
the power that is wielded by those who have im- 
perial authority at their command, for “ the princes 
of this world” have been among the most im- 
placable enemies of the Gospel of Christ; no, but 
“power from on high,” the power of characters 
moulded by the Holy Spirit after the likeness of 
Christ; the power of hearts in closest union to 
the Holy Ghost, yea, the power of the Holy Ghost 
Himself working in them, and through them, and 
with them. Thus we account for the triumphs 
achieved by the apostles, who were, for the most 


INTRODUCTION ; XV 


part, “unlearned and ignorant men.” Thus we 
explain the wondrous things which are told 
regarding the results produced by the sermons 
of the Reformers. Thus we find an adequate 
cause for the effects that followed the discourses of 
Whitefield and Wesley at a later date. We read 
them now, and they seem in no way remarkable to 
us. We cannot understand how they wrought 
such results; and, indeed, it ¢s unaccountable, 
unless we concede that the men themselves were 
“filled with the Holy Ghost,” and so robed with 
that power from on high whereof the ascending 
Saviour spoke. And if we are to have similar 
success in these days, we must seek for it through 
the same instrumentality. 

To help forward such a consummation is the 
design of the treatise which we now introduce 
to the reader. The “Tongue of Fire” has taken 
its place among modern Christian classics, and it 
ought to be in the hands of every minister of the 
Gospel, and every one engaged in any department 
of evangelistic work. It is distinguished by sim- 
plicity, directness, fervor, and unction; and is 
itself an illustration of the principles on which it 
insists. Our own copy of it came into our hands 
many years ago as the gift of a Christian layman, 
who presented it to all the students of Divinity 
in the Scottish seminaries of the time, and its 
perusal stirred our heart to its depths, and gave 


Xvl INTRODUCTION 


an impulse to our soul which has not spent itself 
even now. Weare delighted to learn that it is 
to be studied in the Chautauqua course; and if 
the members of theological seminaries of higher 
grade and of loftier pretensions throughout the 
land could ‘be induced to pore and pray over its 
pages, the results would be speedily apparent in 
revived churches, and in a wider diffusion among 
us of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. 


WILLIAM M. TAYLOR. 


New York, May 17th, 1880. 


PREFACE 


— 


THE following pages are the fruit of meditations 
entered upon with the desire to lessen the distance 
painfully felt to exist between my own life and 
ministry and those of the primitive Christians. 
This fact may, in some measure, account for 
the plan of the work. Many topics which would 
have been fully discussed in a treatise on the work 
of the Holy Spirit, or on the character and usages 
of the primitive Christians, are passed by, or very 
slightly touched: while some others have greater 
prominence than would have been given to them 
in such a work. 

As to the mode of conceiving of events and 
characteristics, nothing has been adopted without 
deliberation. In several cases I should have felt 
interest in discussing other modes of conceiving 
them; but this would have diverted me from the 
direct practical aim with which I set out. 

The work has been interrupted by travel and 
sickness; and, at one time, seemed likely to be cut 
short by death. Spared to complete it, though 
feeling how far it falls short even of my own ideal, 
I humbly trust that it may not be useless. 

KENSINGTON, April 24th, 1856. 

2 


~ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 
Page 
THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE. 
I.—The Word of John the Baptist, . : Beary L 
II.—The Life of the Only-begotten Son of Godieeas3 
CHAPTER II. 
THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT. 
I.—The Hour After the Return from Olivet, . 12 
II.—Ten Days of Waiting, : y oct 


CHAPTER III. 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE. 
I.—Pentecost—Fifty Days After the Passover, dl 
II.—The Sound from Heaven and the Celestial 
Fire, Oe a: 
IlI.—Christianity—A Tone UD of mrou ey! 


CHAPTER IV. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 

I.—“ Filled with the Holy Ghost,” . 41 

II.—The Human Spirit Restored to its @rcinsl 
and Highest Fellowship, 


cr 
vo 


ae. CONTENTS 


Page 

IlI.—The Nature of Man Quickened by an In- 
partation of the Divine Nature, . FET 

IV.—Examples of God’s Moral “Workman.- 
shin, 72 ee. ; : ; : oasis! 

CHAPTER V. 
MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 

I.—The Most Amazing of all Miracles, - ays 
II.—The Word of God to all Nations, . reas 


III, —All Disciples Set upon Spiritual Services, 78 


CHAPTER VI. 
MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 
I.—The Gift of Prophecy—Preaching, . Eo 
Il.—Christianity and Her Tongue of Fire, . 96 


CHAPTER VII. 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 
I.—The Spirit Fulfilling His Great Office, . 105 
Il.—The Creator of Nature Alone Able to Re- 


store Fallen Man, . , . 110 
TIl.—Three Thousand Sinners Converted into 

Saints, seil5 
IV.—Renewing of eal Ves in tae Image of 

God, : : : si bbe 


V.—The Case of the Conver of Pentecost, . 122 
VI.—The Application of Christianity to Social 
Evils, . : ; : 128 
VII.—Prayer and Breeghiies . 182 
VIII.—Fellowship and Brotherhood, . : . 136 


—— oe er 


ee ee  — ee 


CONTENTS xxi 


CHAPTER VIII. 
Page 


PERMANENT BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE CHURCH. 
I.—The Presence and Operation of the Spirit, 149 
II.—Communion of God with Man, ; 156 
IfI.—The Truth in Demonstration of the Spirit, 165 

IV.—Progress of Divine Life and Grace among 


Men,” . 2 169 
V.—Comforts and Deerlenee of Belicvers . 176 
VI.—The True Ministers of Christ, . \ 197 

VII.—Ministers Robed “with Power from on 
Highs ‘ 226 

VIII.—The Converting TnAence of the Holy 
Spirit, . ‘ : 268 
IX.—Al-Substantial Gifts EA bidet é ; , 292 

CHAPTER IX. 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 

J.—The Source of Power, ‘ : . 294 
II.—The Way to Obtain Power, . 298 

III.—The Scale on which our Eeepectation: 
of Success should be Framed, : 318 

IV.—The Conversion of the Whole World ae 
sible, : ‘ . 304 


V.—Let us Up and Be Danes : : . 344 


, ¥ 
Nt beat 


Pikes 


ae 


THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


a 


CHAPTER I. 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE. 


I.—The Word of John the Baptist. 


WHEN John the Baptist was going round J udea, 
shaking the hearts of the people with a call to 
repent, they said, “ Surely this must be the Messiah 
for whom we have waited so long.” “No,” said 
the strong-spoken man, “I am not the Christ:’* 
“but One mightier than I cometh, the latchet 
of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He 
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
fire.’’ + 

This last expression might have conveyed some 
idea of material burning to any people but Jews; 
but in their minds it would awaken other thoughts. 
It would recall the scene when their Father Abra- 
ham asked Him who promised that he should 


* John i. 20. + Luke iii. 16. 


70 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


inherit the land wherein he was a stranger, 
“Lord, whereby shall I &now that I shall inherit 
it?” The answer came thus: he was standing 
under the open sky at night, watching by cloven 
sacrifices, when “ behold a smoking furnace and a 
burning lamp that passed between those pieces” 
of the victims.* “It would recall the fire which 
Moses saw in the bush, which shone, and awed, 
and hallowed even the wilderness, but did not 
consume; the fire which came in the day of Israel’s 
deliverance, as a light on their way, and continued 
with them throughout the desert journey; the fire 
which descended on the Tabernacle in the day 
when it was reared up, and abode upon it continu- 
ally ; which shone in the Shekinah; which touched 
the lips of Isaiah; which flamed in the visions of 
Ezekiel; and which was yet again promised to 
Zion, not only in her public, but in her family 
shrines, when “the Lord will create upon every 
dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon all her 
assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the 
shining of a flaming fire by night.” 

In the promise of a baptism of fire they would 
at once recognize the approach of new manifesta- 
tions of the power and presence of God; for that 
was ever the purport of this appearance in “the 
days of the right hand of the Most High.” 


* Gen. xv. 17. 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE 3 


Il.—The Life of the Only-begotten Son of God. 


Among the multitude who flocked to John came 
one strange Man, whom he did not altogether 
know; yet he knew that He was full of grace and 
wisdom, and in favor with God and man. He felt 
that himself rather needed to be baptized of one 
so pure, than to baptize Him; but he waived his 
feeling, and fulfilled his ministry. As they re- 
turned from the water-side, the heavens opened: 
a bodily shape, as of a Dove, came down and rested 
on the Stranger. At the same time a voice from 
the excellent glory said, “‘ This is My beloved Son, 
in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.” 

John said, “I knew Him not: but He that sent 
me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, 
Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, 
and remaining on Him, the same is He which 
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” Therefore, when 
he saw Him walking, he pointed his own disciples 
to Him, and said that this was He. They heard 
the word and pondered. The next day, again, 
John, seeing Him at a distance, said, “ Behold 
the Lamb of God!” Now, two of his followers went 
after the stranger, to seek at His hand the bap- 
tism which John could not give—the baptism of 
fire. They were joined by others. For months, 
for years, they companied with Him. They saw 
Mis life: a life as of the Only-begotten Son of 


4 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


God. They heard His words: such words as 
“never man spake.” They saw His works: signs, 
and wonders, and great miracles, before all the 
people. Yet they received not the baptism of fire! 

He began to speak frequently of His departure 
from them; but His mode of describing it was 
strange. He was to leave them, and yet not to 
forsake them; to go away, and yet to be with 
them; to go, and yet to come to them. They 
were to be deprived of Him, their Head, yet 
orphans they should not be. Another was to 
come, yet not another; a Comforter from the 
Father, from Himself; whom, not as in His case, 
the world could neither know nor see, but whom 
they should know, though they could not see.* 
His own presence with them was a privilege which 
no tongue could worthily tell. Blessed were their 
eyes for what they saw, and their ears for what 
they heard. Better still than even this was to be 
the presence of the Holy Ghost, who would follow — 
Him as He had followed John. 

“T tell you the truth,’ He said, when about to 
utter what was hard to believe: “I tell you the 
truth; It is expedient for you that I go away.” 
How could it be expedient? Would they not be 
losers to an extent which no man could reckon? 
The light of His countenance, the blessing of His 
words, the purity of His presence, the influence 


* John xiv. 17. 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE 5 


of His example, all to be removed ; and this expe- 
dient for them! “It is expedient for you that I 
go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will 
not come unto you.” Well, but would they not 
be better with Himself than with the Comforter? 
No; just the contrary. They would be better 
with the Comforter. He would lead them into 
all truth; whereas now they were constantly mis- 
applying the plain words of Christ. He would 
bring all things to their remembrance ; whereas 
how they often forgot in a day or two the most 
remarkable teaching, or the most amazing mira- 
cles. He would take the things of Christ, the 
things of the Father, and reveal them unto them; 
whereas now they constantly misapprehended His 
relation to the Father, and that of the Father to 
Him, misapprehended His person, His mission, 
and His kingdom. Again, He would convince 
the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment to come; and this not as one teacher limited 
by a local personality, but as a Spirit diffused 
abroad throughout the earth. And He would 
abide with them forever, not for “a little while.” 
Whatever, therefore, Christ’s personal presence 
and teaching had been to them, the presence of 
the Spirit would be more. 

Having thus preoccupied their minds with the 
hope of a greater joy than even that of His own 
countenance, the Master laid down His life. 


6 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Stunned, dispersed, and desolate, they felt them- 
selves orphans indeed. Their Master ignomini- 
ously executed, and neither the word of John nor 
His own word fulfilled: no Comforter, no baptism 
of fire! Soon He reappeared, and, as they were 
met together for the first time since His death, 
once more stood in the midst of them. He 
breathed upon them, and said, “Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost.” With that word, doubtless, both 
peace and power were given; yet it was not the 
baptism of fire. During forty days He conversed 
with them on the things pertaining to the king- 
dom of God; assigning to them the work of pro- 
claiming and establishing that kingdom to the 
ends of the earth. One injunction, however, He 
laid upon them, which seemed to defer the effect 
of others. They were to go into all the world, 
yet not at once, or unconditionally. “'Tarry ye 
in the city of Jerusalem till ye be endued with 
power from on high.” Apparently more ready to 
interpret “power” as referring to the hopes of 
their nation than to thé kingdom of grace, they 
asked, “ Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again 
the kingdom to Israel?” * 

He had gaid nothing of a kingdom for Israel, 
or in Israel. His speech had been on a higher 
theme, and of a wider field: namely, “that repen- 
tance and remission of sins should be preached ia 

* Acts i. 6. 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE v4 


a 


His name among all nations, beginning at Jeru- 
salem. And ye are witnesses of these things.” 
Such, in various forms, are the words we find Him 
uttering concerning His kingdom during these 
forty days. When, therefore, they asked if He 
would at this time restore again the kingdom to 
Israel, He shortly turned aside their curiosity. 
What were the Father’s designs as to Israel nation- 
ally, what the times when they might again be a 
kingdom, were points not for them. They had 
better work, and nearer at hand. “It is not for 
you to know the times or the seasons, which the 
Father hath put in His own power,” * “ But,” He 
continued, passing at once from curious questions 
about the future of Israel, and unfulfilled proph- 
ecy, to His own grand kingdom, “But ye shall 
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you.” What power? of Princes, or Magis- 
trates? Nay, quite another power, for an unearthly 
work: “And ye shall be witnesses unto Me both 
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” 

In these words He traces the circles in which 
Christian sympathy and activity should ever run 
—first Jerusalem, their chief city; next Judea, 
their native land; then Samaria, a neighboring 
country, inhabited by a race nationally detested 
by their countrymen; and finally, the “ uttermost 

* Acts i. 7. 


8 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


part of the earth.” They were neither to seek 
distant spheres first, nor to confine themselves 
always at home; but to carry the Gospel into all 
the world, as each country could be reached. This 
was what He had before placed in their view, the 
filling of all the earth with the news of grace, 
news that repentance and pardon were open to 
men by the power of His atonement. We have no 
hint that He ever spake, during the forty days, of 
other kingdom, royalty, or reign. Not to rule over 
cities; not to speculate on the designs of the 
Father and the destinies of the Jews; but to go 
into the whole world, and tell every creature the 
story of Christ, was to be their princely work. 
To found a kingdom, not over men’s persons, but 
“within” their souls; a kingdom not of provinces, 
but of “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost,” a kingdom to be spread, not by the 
arms of a second Joshua, but by the “ witness” of 
the human voice; a kingdom the power of which 
would not lie in force or policy, or signs observed 
in heaven, but in a spiritual power imparted by 
the Holy Ghost, and operating in superhuman 
utterance of heavenly truth; this was their em- 
bassy. For this were they to be endued with 
power from on high. But when was this power, 
so long spoken of, to come? Would John’s word 
ever be fulfilled? The Master has not forgotten 
it. “John truly baptized with water, but ye shall 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE 9 


be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days 
hence.” At length the promise is brought toa 
point, and its fulfilment near. 

Already had He proclaimed Himself King, and 
marked out the ministers and army, the weapon, 
the extent, the badge of citizenship, the statute 
law, the royal glory, and the duration of His 
kingdom. With His disciples around Him, stand- 
ing on a mountain top, heaven above and earth 
below, He thus proclaimed His kingdom: “ All 
power is given to Me in heaven and in earth:” 
here was the King. “Go:” here were the minis- 
ters and army—an embassy of peace. “'Teach:” 
here the weapon—the Word of God. “All na- 
tions:” here the extent. “ Baptizing them in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost:” here the badge of citizenship. 
“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I have commanded you:” here the statute law. 
* And, lo, lam with you:” here the royal presence 
and glory of the kingdom. “ Always, unto the 
end of the world:” here is duration.* Now again 
He is rising a hill, conversing with those who had 
heard this proclamation, as to their part in the 
establishment of the kingdom. He has clearly 
promised that, before many days, the long looked- 
for baptism of fire will come. That implies, that 
before many days He will depart; for He ever said 

* Matt. xxviii. 19, 20. 


10 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


that He must: first ascend. He has answered, or 
rather rebuked, their curious inquiry as to Israel; 
has turned their thoughts again to the descent of 
the Spirit; and is just telling them that, endued 
with this new power, they shall bear witness to 
His glory, not only at home, but abroad. “To 
the uttermost part of the earth” is the last word 
on His lips*—a startling word for His peasant 
auditors, accustomed to limit their range of 
thought within the Holy Land. But He had 
already said that all power was given to Him “in 
heaven and in earth.” Did not the faith of some 
disciple reel under the weight of these words? 
“In Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, 
and tO THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH!” 
This word is on His lips; they are steadily watch- 
ing Him; He lifts His hands, He pronounces His 
blessing; and in the act,+ lo, His body, which 
they know “has flesh and bones” like their own, 
begins to rise! No wing, no hand, no chariot of 
fire! Upward it moves by its own power; and in 
that single action commands the homage of earth; 
for our globe has no law so universal and irrever- 
sible as that whereby it binds down all ponderous 
bodies to its surface. Here this law gives way, 
and thereby the whole mass of the globe yields to 
the power of Christ. 'The placid movement of 
that body, up from the surface of earth into the 
* Acts 1. 8. + Luke xxiy. 50. 


THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE et 


heights of the sky, is an open act of sovereignty 
over the highest physical law; whereby Christ 
“manifested forth His glory,” as Lord and Maker 
of all physical laws. His proclamation of king- 
ship is thus acknowledged by earth with its high- 
est homage. Now the heaven adds its homage, 
stoops in luminous cloud, and robes Him for His 
enthronement. The everlasting doors lift up their 
heads. The King of Glory enters in. The First- 
begotten from the dead, the Prince of the Kings 
of the earth, sits down with the Father on His 
throne; and from Him receives the word, “ Thy 
throne, O God, is for ever and ever ; a sceptre of 
righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom!” 
And again, “Let all the angels of God worship 
Him.” Within the veil they worship the Lamb; 
and down they speed to His followers, and tell 
them that they need not gaze. As they have seen 
Him go, so shall. they see Him come, even in the 
clouds, to judge that world, of which and of its 
princes He is King. Thus triply is His kinship 
owned. arth permits Him to rise, heaven bows, 
the angels add their testimony. All things own 
Him. Unbelief is now impossible. Doubt van- 
ishes away. His word shall not pass unfulfilled. 


The baptism of fire is at hand 
3 


CHAPTER II. 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT. 


I.—The Hour after the Return from Olivet. 


Ir is on Thursday, probably in the evening, that 
the disciples return to Jerusalem. Their Master 
is no more at their head—indeed, no more on 
earth; and as yet His great promise is unfulfilled. 
But the scene of the ascension is in their eye; the 
voice of angels in theirear. Jesus is King of Kings, 
and Lord of Lords. The Comforter is coming 
“not many days hence.” Not with doubting or 
weeping do they enter the city, but with “ great 
joy;” the joy of a triumph already sealed, and 
of hope foreseeing triumphs to come. Most 
probably that joy carries their first steps to the 
temple.* Oft had they entered it with Him, but 
never so triumphantly as now. ‘There they are, 
not mourning the absence of their Master, but 
“praising and blessing God.’”’ Thence they go to 
“an upper room.” We know not in what street, 
or on what site; but there “abode” a few men 
whose names were not then great, but whose names 


* Luke xxiv. 53. 
12 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 13 


will never more pass away from the memory of 
mankind. With them abode also a few women, 
who had loved their Lord; and for the last time 
“Mary the mother of Jesus” is named as one of 
the little company. Men and women now began 
to pray, and they “continued with one accord in 
prayer and supplication,” for the baptism of fire. 

Did they expect to receive it that very night? 
This we know not; but we do know that then 
opened a new era in the intercourse of man with 
heaven. As they began to pray, how they would 
find all their conceptions of the Majesty on high 
changed! It no longer spread before and beyond 
the soul’s eyesight, as an unvaried infinity of glory 
incomprehensible. The glory was brighter, the 
incomprehensibility remained; but the infinity 
had now received a centre. Evyery beam of the 
glory converged toward the person of “ God mani- 
fest in the flesh,” now “received up into heaven:” 
the glory not dissolving the person in its own tide, 
the person not dimming the glory by any shade, 
though appearing through it as the sun’s body 
through the light. Perhaps, indeed, the change 
was such to their view as would have struck the 
eye of an ordinary observer of nature, had one 
lived in our planet, at the time when the sun was 
first set in the firmament. The light which be- 
fore had been a wide and level mystery, now had 
to his eye a law, a centre, and a spring. ‘The 


14 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


indistinct view of a material form amid the seem- 
ingly spiritual glory, gave the feeling that some 
body akin to our own globe lay at the centre of 
illumination. This body was not the cause of the 
light, not even of the same nature, but around 
the body the “exceeding weight of glory’ seemed 
to hang. 

Oh, to feel as felt that heart which first dis- 
cerned human nature, in the person of Him who 
had been “so marred,” “set down on the right 
hand of the Majesty on high!”’ ‘The glory of the 
Father encompassing a human form, and beaming 
from a human brow! “If ye loved Me, ye would 
rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for 
My Father is greater than I,” was the word of 
Jesus. Now that they had seen Him pass within 
the veil; seen the ushering angels attend His en- 
trance, and heard the music of their voices; they 
would not feel as if He had forsaken them, but as 
they had often felt when the High Priest passed 
from their view into the holiest, bearing the blood 
of the atonement, to stand before the PRESENCE. 
“He is out of sight, but there before the Lord.” 
The first thought would be one of joy for Him. 
- Peter! how did thy breast heave when first thou 
didst behold, by faith clear as sight, that counte- 
nance which had looked round upon thee from the 
bar, now looking down upon thee from the high 
and lofty throne! Mary Magdalene, who wast 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 15 


bent under the seven-fold power of the devil when 
first that face beamed on thee, who didst fall at 
His feet when, just arisen from the dead, He first 
appeared to thee! what was the flow of thy tears, 
what was the odor of thy joy, when the full truth 
burst on thy view, that He had “overcome, and — 
was set down with the Father on His throne!” 
And thou, John! what felt thy bosom when He 
on whose bosom thine own head had leaned, ap- 
peared to thy mind no more with such as thee; 
but, as “in the beginning, with God?” And 
thou, too, Mary the blessed, through whose soul 
the sword had gone! how did thy “soul magnify 
the Lord!” how did thy “spirit rejoice in God 
thy Saviour,” when thy meek eye saw the infinite 
accomplishment of Gabriel’s word, He shall be 
Great ! 

Mingling with this first joy for the Master’s 
exaltation, and presently rising to the surface and 
overspreading all their emotions, would be the 
feeling, ““He has entered for us within the veil! 
He bears our names upon His heart for a memorial 
before the Lord! He maketh intercession for us!” 
Tush! which of the twelve is it that starts up 
as if a spirit had entered him, and, pointing up- 
ward, says to the brethren: “Let us ask the 
Father in His NAME! He said to us, ‘Whatsoever 
ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give 
it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My 


16 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


mame: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may 
petoll?2h= 

The angels had often sung together when the 
prayer of repenting sinners was heard on high. 
Now, for the first time, they hear prayers from 
human lips rising to the Throne authorized and 
accredited by the NAME of the Only-begotten of 
the Father. That name has just been set “ above 
every name;” and as it echoes through the host 
above, with the solemn joy of a hundred believing 
voices, “things in heaven” bow. Be man ever so 
unworthy, “worthy is the Lamb;” and His name 
covers with justice every request to which it is 
set by His authority. What must have been that 
moment for the saints in Paradise, who had seen 
the Saviour afar off, but never known the joy of 
praying directly in His name! Father Abraham 
had “rejoiced to see His day; and he saw it and 
was glad.” What would be his gladness now, that 
earth and heaven were rejoicing in His name! 
David, to whom He was at once Lord and Son— 
what would be “the things” which in that won- 
derful moment his tongue would speak “ touching 
the King?” 

From the hour that sin entered into the world, 
the Just One had never given man audience on terms 
fit only for the innocent. An upright inferior 
may approach Majesty, not without reverence, but 


* John xvi. 23, 24. 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT shy 


without shame or atonement. The admission of 
a criminal on the same footing would be wrong. 
Right in our governments is the imperfect reflec- 
tion of a perfect right. Had the favor of the 
Almighty crossed the line which divides innocence 
from guilt, and smiled upon the latter, that smile 
would have been a scathing flash, wherein all 
morals would have blackened. Sinful man had not 
been hopelessly banished from the presence of God; 
but he had been taught to come displaying a sign 
of wrath, of death, which is the wages of sin; 
thus declaring to the universe that he appealed, 
not to a justice which had never been offended, 
but to a justice which had been satisfied. 

The altar had been the Patriarch’s place of 
prayer. The temple, where was the perpetual 
offering, had been the centre to which every pray- 
ing Israelite turned. To approach the Eternal 
Godhead as if no evil had been done, and no stroke 
merited, was never yet the privilege of a creature 
who had done wrong. It was wonderful, yea, 
mysterious, that such could be allowed to approach 
at all; but the Lord would ever justify His per- 
mission, by demanding clear and express reference 
to that propitiation, which He has set forth to 
declare His own righteousness, in that marvellous 
act of lifting the guilty into the mansions of the 
good. 

How great the transition from these symbols of 


18 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the Atonement to the full view of its reality! 
During the Forty Days Jesus had opened their 
understanding, pointed out to them the Scriptures 
which bore upon His death, and showed its con- 
nection with remission of sins for mankind. They 
now looked no more to temple or to altar. They 
had before them the true sacrifice completed. He 
had “purged their sins,” and, in the same body 
wherein He had done so, was standing before the 
Father. 

He had given them authority to use His name. 
With that name their petitions carried the assent 
of all the rational and moral creation. The eter- 
nal Father, in holding communion with beings 
who had done wrong, exposed no sinless being to 
doubts as to whether right and wrong were equal. 
He had “ made peace through” Christ’s “ blood,”’ 
had thus “reconciled all things to Himself ”’—to 
Himself in the new and mysterious proceeding of 
government, whereby the doers of wrong were 
spared the effects of wrong-doing. “ For it pleased 
the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; 
and, having made peace through the blood of His 
cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Him- . 
self; by Him, I say, whether they be things in 
earth, or things in heaven.” * So that creatures 
“in heaven,” all whose joy depended on their never 
doing wrong, had no murmur to raise, and no 

* Col. i. 19, 20. 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 19 


temptation to undergo, when they saw creatures 
“on earth,’’ who had followed ways which would 
make any world sorrowful, received into the arms 
of Eternal Mercy. The guilty He reconciled by 
forgiving their sin and recovering their hearts; 
and the innocent He reconciled to see offenders 
exalted, by “setting forth’ so conspicuously that 
all angels desired to look into it, “a propitiation,” 
which fully “declared His righteousness,” His 
strict care of right; which magnified law, magni- 
fied holiness, magnified obedience, and, in the act 
of saving the guilty, magnified beyond all previous 
conception the heinousness of guilt. What sense 
of the distinction between right and wrong could 
have been maintained among innocent creatures 
had they seen transgressors raised to favor and 
honor without atonement? 

Oh, the joy of that first hour of praying in the 
name of Christ! Was not Martha there? As she 
met the Master on that mournful day when Lazarus 
lay in the tomb, though despairing, she said, “ But 
I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask 
of God, God will give it Thee.” If such was her 
confidence then, what would be her confidence now 
—He asking for her, and she asking in His name! 
How the souls of the disciples following Him above 
the sky would soar, with a new wing, a new eye, 
and a new song! What simple and glowing col- 
lects would they be which were uttered then! 


20 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


What words of joy and supplication would he 
pour forth who first bethought him of putting the 
Lord in remembrance of His own promises! What 
short and burning petitions would go up from the 
lips which first quoted, “ Whatsoever ye shall ask 
the Father in My name, He shall give it you!” 
How would he plead who first remembered, “‘ Ask 
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you!”” How 
would tones of desire and triumph mingle in the 
first repetition of “ All things whatsoever ye ask in 
prayer, believing, ye shall receive!” None of 
their prayers are recorded. We have ancient col- 
lects, and beautiful they are; but none of these 
most ancient are preserved. The Spirit has not 
seen it good to hand down the strong and tender 
collects of these ten, or of the following days. 
Then, surely, it is unlawful to impose good forms 
of prayer upon all men because ancient saints wrote 
them. 

He who will never use a form in public prayer, 
casts away the wisdom of the past. He who will 
use only forms, casts away the hope of utterance 
to be given by the Spirit at present, and even shuts 
up the future in the stiff hand of the past. What- 
ever Church forbids a Christian congregation, no 
matter what may be their fears, troubles, joys, or 
special and pressing need, ever to send up prayer 
to God except in words framed by other men in 
other ages, uses an authority which was never del- 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 21 


egated. ‘To object to all forms is narrowness. ‘To 
doom a Christian temple to be a place wherein a 
simple and impromptu cry may never arise to 
heaven, is superstition. 

Does any one of the hundred and twenty, even 
in paradise, up to this moment forget the hour of 
prayer that Thursday night, after they had re- 
turned from Olivet? 


II.—Ten Days of Waiting. 


The Friday morning dawns. It was on Friday 
the Lord had died. Would He not send His 
promised substitute to-day? Oh, how His cross 
would all day long stand before the eye of every 
disciple! Now came back all His words about the 
death “which He should accomplish;” from the 
night when He told Nicodemus that, as the ser- 
pent had been lifted up, so must He, up to the 
night in which He said, “The hour is come ’”’— 
words dark at the time, but pointed to-day as the 
steel of arrows. What had been mystery was mys- 
tery no longer. Now the only mystery was, “ What 
manner of love!” Was it on that day that John’s 
fiery heart—the heart which had rebuked the man 
who followed not them, which wished to burn the 
inhospitable villagers, and to be, with his brother, 
head of all—was it then this heart fully embraced 
the meaning of the agony witnessed by him so 
close at hand, as compared with the others, and 


IV) THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


written upon it forever? Was it then it first saw 
all the import of the words, “God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever -believeth in Him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life?” and that the “son 
of thunder” was transformed into the child of 
charity? 

Never before had the thought of man alternated 
between two such scenes as those which divided the 
eye of every soul in that praying company—a cross, 
a drooping head, hands bleeding, feet bleeding, 
heaven black, thieves on either side, gibes below; 
and a preternatural sorrow on the soul of the suf- 
ferer, which cast over the whole an infinite dread- 
fulness. On this the eye looks one moment, and 
weeps. ‘Then a throne, high and lifted up; the 
glory of the Lord; angels bowing; angels singing; 
saints with palm, and harp, and voice acclaiming; 
and in the centre of all might, majesty, and do- 
minion, the crucified body, living, but with its 
wounds, “as slain.”” On this the same eye looks, 
and weeps again. Oh, for the feelings of that 
day! 

Yet the Friday wears away, and no “ baptism of 
fire!’’ The Saturday sets in; its hours are filled 
‘up as before, with prayer; but no answer. And 
now dawns the first day of the week, the day 
whereon He rose, the first Lord’s day He had 
passed on His throne of glory. Mow did they 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 23 


spend that day? Surely they would fully expect 
that the blessing they sought would be delayed 
no longer. He said, “Not many days:” this 
was the fourth day; it must come to-day! But 
the evening steals on, and all their prayers 
might have risen into a heaven that could not 
hear. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pass. Their 
faith does not fail; still in the temple “ praising 
and blessing God,” or in the upper room in 
“prayer and supplication,” they continue of one 
accord. Though He tarry, yet will they wait for 
Him. 

This 2s waiting. Some speak of waiting for 
salvation as if it meant making ourselves at ease, 
and dismissing both effort and anxiety. Who so 
waits for any person or any event? When waiting, 
your mind is set on a certain point; you can give 
yourself to nothing else. You are looking for- 
ward, and preparing; every moment of delay in- 
creases the sensitiveness of your mind as to that 
one thing. A servant waiting for his master, a 
young wife waiting for the footstep of her hus- 
band, a mother waiting for her expected boy, a 
merchant waiting for his richly-laden ship, a sailor 
waiting for the sight of land, a monarch waiting 
for tidings of the battle—all these are cases wherein 
the mind is set on one object, and cannot easily 
give attention to another. 

“To-morrow will be Thursday, a full week from 


24 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the Ascension: that will be the day, the term of 
the promise will not extend further. To-morrow 
the Comforter will come; to-morrow we shall be 
baptized with fire, and fitted to do the works our 
Master did, ‘yea, greater works than these.’?” So 
they would probably settle it in their mind. The 
Thursday finds them, as before, “of one accord in 
one place;’’ no Thomas absent through unbelief, 
How the scene of that day week would return 
to their view! How they would over and over 
again in mind repeat the walk from Jerusalem to 
Olivet; each recalling what he said to the Master, 
and what the Master said to him; each thinking 
he had got such a look as he never got before, and 
as he should not forget so long as he lived! How 
they would repeat the last words! “Ye shall re- 
celve power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you.” In the repetition new faith would 
kindle. “ Yes, we shall; let us wait on; we shall 
‘be endued with power from on high? @iiihien 
another would repeat, ‘‘ And ye shall be witnesses 
to Me in Jerusalem, and in all J udea, and in Sa- 
maria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.” 
This was vast language for them, whose thoughts 
were wont to move only in the sphere of Palestine. 
Probably they did not so much weigh the import 
of the terms as look at the main promise. They 
should be endued with the power of the Holy 
Ghost—that power which had made Psalmists and 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 25 


Prophets; had rendered the words of Elijah 
stronger than the decrees of Ahab, the words of 
Elisha stronger than the armies of Syria, the words 
of Isaiah as coals from the altar, and the words of 
Daniel mightier than the spirit of a king and “a 
thousand of his captains.” Baptized with the 
same Spirit, they were to proclaim what these 
foretold, but never saw: the Child born, the Son 
given, the Prince cut off for sin (but not His 
own), the Lamb on whom were laid the iniquities 
of all. All this they had seen fulfilled in the 
Person of their glorious Lord. All this they had 
heard explained by His own lips, before and after 
His death. They were to go and prove to others, 
as He had proved to them, that “thus it was writ- 
ten, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to 
rise again the third day; and that repentance and 
remission of sins should be preached in His name 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” 

Here again they encountered the intimation 
that their message was for all, and their testimony 
to be borne to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
Yet still it seems that not the sphere, but the 
purport, of their commission now occupied their 
minds. They were to go, and as He had preached, 
so would they, far and wide, in cities and villages. 
In what tones would they tell the people that, as 
He used to say to those who came to Him, “ Be of 
good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee,” so would 


26 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


He now say, from heaven, to all who now lifted 
an eye to Him! 

But the days wear on, and no blessing. Is not 
the delay long? ‘‘ Not many days!” Does the 
promise hold good? They must have felt disap- 
pointed as the evening fell, and no sign of an 
answer to their oft-repeated prayer. Now is the 
hour of trial. Will their faith fail? Will some 
begin to forsake the meetings which bring not the 
baptism they seek? Will some stay at home, or 
“go a-fishing,” saying that they will wait the 
Lord’s time, and not be unwarrantably anxious 
about what, after all, does not depend on them, 
but on the Lord? Will no one say: “ We have 
done our duty and must leave results. We can- 
not command the fulfilment of the promise. We 
have asked for it, asked sincerely, fervently, re- 
peatedly: we can do no more?” 

Or, what is equally probable, will they begin to 
find out that the cause why they remain unblessed 
and yet “orphans,” lies in the unfaithfulness of 
their companions? Happily, the spirit of faith 
and love abides upon them. John does not turn 
upon Peter, and say, “It is your fault; for you 
denied the Master.” Philip does not turn to 
John, and say, “It is your fault ; for you and 
James wanted to lord it over us all.” Andrew 
does not turn to Thomas, and say, “It is your 
fault; for you would not believe, even when we 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT AM 


had declared it to you.” The Seventy do not 
say, “It is the fault of the Twelve; for, after the 
Lord had lifted them above us all, one of them 
sold Him, another denied Him, and a third disbe- 
leved.” ‘The Marys do not say, “It is the fault 
of the whole company, a cold and unfaithful com- 
pany, professing to love the Master to His face, 
but the moment He fell into the hands of His 
enemies, ye all forsook Him and fled!” 

Well did they know that they had been slow of 
heart; been unworthy of such a Teacher; had 
often grieved Him, made Him ask, “ How long 
shall I be with you?” John would never forget 
the rebuke, “ Ye know not what manner of spirit 
ye are of.” Peter would never forget, the third 
time, ‘“ Lovest thou: Me?” Philip would never 
forget, “ Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?” And 
surely Thomas would never forget, “ Be not faith- 
less, but believing.” 

Yet they knew He had not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners, to repentance. His own 
lips had said, “He that is whole hath no need of 
a physician, but he that is sick.” Had He not 
taken to His bosom the very head whose heats of 
ambition and of vindictiveness He had rebuked? 
Had He not said to Peter, “Feed My lambs?” 
Had He not said to Thomas, “ Reach hither thy 


hand?’’ His promise was not made because they 
4 


28 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


were a Church without spot or wrinkle, but be- 
cause they were feeble, and, deprived of His own 
presence, would be orphans indeed, did no other 
power cover them. He knew every fault with 
which any of them could charge the others; yet 
the promise had passed His lips, and the fire would 
fall even on them, unworthy as they were. Happy 
for them that none fancied he could fix upon 
others the cause of their unanswered prayers! 

The Thursday is gone; eight days! The Friday 
and the Saturday follow it, marked by the same 
persistency in union, in praise, in prayer, and by 
the same absence of encouragement. Ten days 
gone! the promise, “Not many days,” is all but 
broken. 

Peter was always warm and earnest. <A thought 
of his had hardly time to become a thought before 
it turned into either word or action. When once 
his mind had embraced the glorious idea of stand- 
ing up before the world, a witness for his ascended 
Master, it would seem as if the whole plan was to 
be carried out ina day. One cannot help imag- 
ining how he bore the restraint of the TEN DAYS— 
the days of prayer, of belief, of waiting—in which 
they were not permitted to begin their work. 

“Strange!” we almost hear him say, “ Strange! 
The Lord has died that repentance and remission 
of sins should be preached in His name among all 
nations. He has finished the work, risen from 


THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILMENT 29 


the dead, and led captivity captive. The heavens 
have received Him. The angels proclaim Him. 
Us He took from our homes; how He taught, and 
trained, and practised us; all, as we now see, for 
this work of proclaiming His love and the pardon 
it brings to all mankind! Here we are, unfitted 
for every other calling. His commission is to us 
as a Prophet’s call, as a King’s anointing. He 
said, ‘Go into all the world, and preach the Gos- 
pel to every creature.’ We want to go. Men 
stand in need: they are dying daily; dying in un- 
belief. Why does He not permit us to go? Why 
is the first command so long suspended by the other? 
‘Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be 
endued with power from on high.’ We have tar- 
ried ten days. Why does our Master delay? The 
world needs the sound of His Gospel; we are wait- 
ing to bear it forth. He is exalted at God’s right 
hand, and all power is given unto Him in heaven 
and in earth; yet does He look down upon the 
world sleeping a sleep unto death, and upon us 
waiting to blow the trumpet! Are not His in- 
structions, His commission, enough? We are 
ordained, after much teaching—may we not go? 
No; we must abide by His word: ‘Tarry, until 
ye be endued with power from on high.’ ” 

The final proof given by Peter that he was wait- 
ing indeed, making all preparations for the event, 
was in calling upon his brethren to fill up the 


30 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


number of the Apostles. One had fallen. His 
place was vacant, and another was to take his 
“bishopric.” Peter concluded that they were to fill 
up this vacancy, and called upon the company to 
select twomen. No one objected that it remained 
to be seen whether they should be endued with 
power or not. All acted as feeling the certainty 
that the Holy Spirit was about to come, the apos- 
tolic commission about to be fulfilled to the ends 
of the earth. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE. 


I.—Pentecost—Fifty Days after the Passover. 


THERE was a day when death had struck a woful 
stroke, and raised a nation’s wail. “There was a 
‘ great cry in the land of Egypt: for there was not 
a house where there was not one dead.” That 
same day the Lord, by the sprinkling of a pure 
lamb’s blood, averted death from the doors of 
Israel, and then led them away from yoke and 
taskmaster, toward the goodly land. Fifty days 
afterward they reached the Mount of God, where 
He manifested Himself in the thunder of His 
power, with flame and trumpet, and a voicr, 
whereat all the tribes did tremble. Then was the 
new dispensation formally inaugurated, with the 
voice and the flame; its covenant sealed by the 
sprinkling of blood, and its privileges opened to 
the sprinkled by the vision of glory, when the 
Elders “saw the God of Israel: and there was under 
His feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire 
stone, and as it were the body of heaven in His 


clearness.” * 
* Exod. xxiv. 10. 
OL 


aie THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


This time of note was come; the fifty days were 
elapsed from the time when the Lamb was slain 
and captivity broken. Forty days had He been 
with them after His resurrection; the rest He had 
passed within the veil. And was it not possible 

/that in saying ‘ Not many days,’’ He pointed them 
forward to the day which commemorated the open- 
ing of the new dispensation of God to Israel by the 
hand of His servant Moses? Was it not probable 
that the glorious dispensation of His Son would 
be opened at this time? Unbelief would long ago 
have ceased to expect; but faith would probably 
renew its anticipations, and look to this day.* 

On the morning of the resurrection, some—the 
women—were early at the tomb; but the others 
were sauntering into the country, or here and 
there, with nothing to wait for, as they thought; 
yet partly expecting something to come to their 
ears. ven late in the day, when they did meet 
to hear what some had seen and heard, Thomas 
was away. Now, however, after ten days have 
elapsed, their patience is not exhausted. They do 
expect, and therefore will not cease to wait. They 
have no attention for anything else. The king- 
dom of God is at hand. Did He not say, ‘‘ Not 
many days?’ ‘Ten are gone; and the conclusion is 


* Among the many writers on the temporal relation be- 
tween the Pentecost and the Passover, no one is fuller or 
clearer than Kuinoel. 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE 33 


not that of servants too idle to wait: “Our Lord 
delayeth His coming; we may as well sit still. 
He will come in His own good time.” ‘That is 
not waiting: it ig idling. They said, in their 
believing hearts, ‘Ten days are gone; therefore, 
the day of our Lord draweth nigh. This is the 
day of Pentecost; and as the fire appeared on Si- 
nai, in the presence of our fathers, when God 
made His covenant by Moses, it may be that to- 
day He will seal His covenant, by the hand of the 
Prophet whom Moses foresaw, baptizing us with 
fire, according to the word wherein He hath made 
His servants to hope.” 

No Thomas is absent now! Not one heart has 
failed! “They are all in one place.” No discord 
or doubt have they permitted to arise—" they are 
all with one accord in one place.” Nor are they 
slow or late. We are not told at what hour they 
met, but it must have been very early; for after 
they had received the baptism, and filled all Jeru- 
salem with the noise of their new powers, Peter 
reminded the multitude who came together that 
it was only the third hour of the day—nine o’clock 
in the morning. 


Il.—The Sound from Heaven and the Celestial Fire. 


Early, then, on the second Lord’s day after the 
Ascension, is the entire company met, with one 
heart, to renew their oft-repeated prayer. We 


34 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


cannot go to the house where was that upper room; 
nor to the site where it stood. These points are 
left unnoticed, after the mode of Christianity, 
which is in nothing a religion of circumstances, 
in everything a religion of principles. We know 
not how long they had that morning urged their 
prayer, nor whose voice was then crying to Him 
who had promised, nor what word of the Master 
he was pleading, nor what feelings of closer expec- 
tation and more vivid faith were warming the 
breasts of the disciples. But “suddenly there 
came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty 
wind.” Not, mark you, a wind; no gale sweeping 
over the city struck the sides of the house and 
rustled round it. But “from heaven,” directly 
downward, fell “a sound,” without shape, or step, 
or movement to account for it—a sound as if a 
mighty wind were rushing, not along the ground, 
but straight from on high, like showers in a dead 
calm. Yet no wind stirred. As to motion, the 
air of the room was still as death; as to sound, 
it was awful as a hurricane. 

Mysterious sound, whence comest thou? Is it 
the Lord again breathing upon them, but this 
time from His throne? Is it the wind of Ezekiel 
preparing to blow? Shaken by this supernatural 
sign, we may see each head bow low. Then, tim- 
idly turning upward, John sees Peter’s head 
crowned with fire; Peter sees James crowned with 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE 35 


fire; James sees Nathanael crowned with fire; 
Nathanael sees Mary crowned with fire; and round 
and round the fire sits ““on each of them.” The 
Lord has been mindful of His promise. The word 
of the Lord is tried. John was a faithful witness. 
Jesus was a faithful Redeemer. He is now glori- 
fied; for the Holy Ghost is given. Jesus “ being 
by the right hand of God exalted, and having re- 
ceived of the Father the promise of the Holy 
Ghost, He hath shed forth this.” 

The instant effect of the descent of the Spirit 
on the first Gentile converts in the house of Cor- 
nelius was, that they began to “magnify God.” * 
The effect would be the same in this first case. 
That bosom has yet to learn what is the feeling of 
moral sublimity, which never has been suddenly 
heaved with an emotion of uncontrollable adora- 
tion to God and the Lamb—an emotion which, 
though no voice told whence it came, by its move- 
ment in the depths of the soul, further down than 
ordinary feelings reach, did indicate somehow that 
the touch of the Creator was traceable in it. 
They only who have felt such unearthly joy need 
attempt to conceive the outburst of that burning 
moment. Body, soul, and spirit, glowing with 
one celestial fire, would blend, and pour out their 
powers in a rapturous “Glory be to God!” or 
“Blessed be the Lord God!’ Modern believers— 


«See Baumgarten. 


36 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


not those who never unite in simple and fervent 
supplications at the throne of grace, but those who 
meet and urge with long-repeated entreaty their 
requests to God—can recall times which help them 
to imagine what must have been the peal of praise 
that burst from the hearts of the hundred and 
twenty when the baptism fell upon their souls; 
times when they and their friends have felt ag if 
the place where they met was filled with the glory 
of the Lord. 

One word as to the mode of this baptism. In 
this case we have the one perfectly clear account 
contained in Scripture of the mode wherein the 
baptizing element was applied to the person of the 
baptized. The element here is fire; the mode is 
shedding down—“ hath shed forth this.” “It sat 
upon each of them.” Did baptism mean immer- 
sion, they would haye been plunged into the fire, 
not the fire shed upon them. ‘The only other case 
in which the mode of contact between the baptiz- 
ing element and the baptized persons is indicated, 
is this: “And were all baptized to Moses in the 
cloud and in the sea.” They were not dipped in 
the cloud, but the cloud descended upon them; 
they were not plunged in the sea, but the sea 
sprinkled them as they passed. The Spirit signi- 
fied by the water is never once promised under the 
idea of dipping. Such an expression as, “I will 
immerse you in My Spirit,” “I will plunge you in 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE 37 


My Spirit,” or, “I will dip you in clean water,” is 
unknown to the Scripture. But, “I will pour out 
My Spirit upon you,” “I will sprinkle clean water 
upon you,” is language and thought familiar to 
all readers of the Bible. The word “dip,” or 
“ dipped,” does not often occur in the New Testa- 
ment, but when it does, the original is zever “ bap- 
tize,’’ or ‘ baptized.” * 


Ill.—Christianity—A Tongue of Fire. 

The fire is not a shapeless flame. It is not 
Abram’s lamp, nor the pillar of the desert, nor 
the coal of Isaiah, nor the infolding flame of 
Ezekiel. It is a tongue; yea, cloven tongues. 
On each brow grows a sheet of flame, parted into 
many tongues. Here was the symbol of the new 
dispensation. Christianity was to be a Tongue of 
Fire. It was a symbol of their “ power,’ the 
power whereby the new kingdom was to be built 
up; the power for which they had so long to tarry, 
and so eagerly to pray, when all other things were 
prepared; for which’the whole arrangement of the 
world’s conversion was commanded to stand still. 
The appearance of this one symbol was the signal 
that former ones had waxed old, and were ready to 
vanish away. Altar and cherubim, sacrifice and 
incense, ephod and breastplate, Urim and Thum- 
mim—their work was done. Even of the most 


*It is always Barrw never Bantico. 


38 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


sacred emblem of all, that which was the “ pattern 
of things in the heavens,” the Ark itself, it had 
been foretold, “They shall say no more, The Ark 
of the Covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come 
to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither 
shall they visit it; neither shall it be magnified 
any more.” Of the temple itself the Master had 
said, that not one stone shall be left upon another. 

All the emblems of the old dispensation were 
forever superseded. In their room the Lord had 
appointed only two; and they chosen with a singu- 
lar aptness at once to suggest ideas, and to avoid 
image representation:—the water, wherein the 
mind could see a symbol of the cleansing Spirit, 
but the eye no attempted likeness: the bread and 
wine, wherein ‘the body and the blood are forcibly 
brought to mind, but no personal similitude is set 
before the eye. These two only were the unar- 
tistic emblems which Christ had ordained for His 
Church. His was to be a religion of the under- 
standing and the heart; wholly resting on the con- 
victions and the principles, building nothing on 
sense, and permitting nothing to fancy. 

In strict keeping with this spiritual stamp of 
Christianity was the symbol which, once for all, 
announced to the Church the advent of her con- 
quering power—the power by which she was to 
stand before Kings, to confound synagogues, to 
silence councils, to still mobs, to confront the 


THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE 39 


learned, to illuminate the senseless, and to inflame 
the cold—the power by which, beginning at Jeru- 
salem, where the name of Jesus was a byword, she 
was to proclaim His glory through all Judea, 
throughout Samaria, and throughout the utter- 
most parts of the earth. The symbol is a TONGUE, 3 
the only instrument of the grandest war ever 
waged: a tongue—man’s speech to his fellow-man; _ 
a message in human words to human faculties, 
from the understanding to the understanding, 
from the heart to the heart. A tongue of fire—a 
man’s voice, God’s truth; man’s speech, the Holy 
Spirit’s inspiration; a human organ, a superhu- 
man power! ’ Not one tongue, but cloven tongues; 
as the speech of men is various, here we see the 
Creator taking to Himself the language of every 
man’s mother; so that in the very words wherein 
he heard her say, “I love thee,” he might also 
hear the Father of all say, “I love thee.” 

How does that fire-symbol, shining on the brow 
of the primitive Church, rebuke that system which 
would force all men to worship God in one tongue, 
and that not a tongue of fire, but a dead 
tongue, wherein no man now on earth can hear 
his mother’s tones! Cloven tongues sat on each 
of them; so that each had not only the fire-impulse 
to go and tell aloud the message of reconciliation, 
but also the fire-token that all mankind, of what- 
ever nation, kindred, people, or tongue, were 


4.0 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


heirs alike of the Gospel salvation, and of the 
word whereby that salvation is proclaimed. 

Blessed be the hour when that ToNGUE or FIRE 
descended from the Giver of speech into a cold 
world! Had it never come, my mother might 
have led me, when a child, to see slaughter for 
worship, and I should have taught my little ones 
that stones were gods. “ Blessed be the Lord God, 
the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous 
things! And blessed be His glorious name for- 
ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His 
glory! Amen and Amen!” 


ea 


CHAPTER IV. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 


I.—“ Filled with the Holy Ghost.” 


THE first effect which followed this baptism of 
fire is thus described: ‘‘ They were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost.” This expression is so closely 
joined with the record of the miracle, that we 
easily suppose that it is itself intended to express 
miraculous inspiration; but this is not its constant, 
nor even its most frequent, use in the New Testa- 
ment. It is sometimes employed to describe an 
inspiration antecedent to a miraculous manifesta- 
tion, and sometimes one antecedent to a purely 
moral manifestation. Examples of the latter oc- 
cur in several cases of “speaking the word of God 
with boldness,” when the circumstances were such 
that human nature unassisted would have shrunk 
from the danger. 

John the Baptist wrought no miracle: yet of 
him it was said that he should be “ filled with the 
Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.” Here the 
expression denotes some inward and spiritual 
operation, which may take place in the silence of 
an infant’s heart, and show its fruit in the quiet 

Al 


~ 


42 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ways of childhood. Had he been filled with the 
Holy Ghost immediately before commencing to 
preach, we should have connected the former with 
the latter, as an official, rather than as an inward 
and moral, qualification. When men were re- 
quired to fill the office of Deacons—not to work 
miracles, not to speak with tongues, but to promote 
the brotherhood and good feeling of the Church, 
by a better regulation of its daily relief to the 
poor—the qualification demanded was, that they 
should be “ men full of the Holy Ghost and wis- 
dom.” Again, Barnabas “was a good man, and 
full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.” This is 
said of him, not as accounting for any miracles 
or tongues, but in relation to the fact that, when 
he had seen the converts at Antioch, “ he was glad, 
and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart 
they would cleave unto the Lord.” Again, when 
the Apostles were first called to bear witness for 
Christ before the Rulers, “ Peter, filled with the 
Holy Ghost, said unto them,” etc. Here we have 
no working of miracles, no speaking of foreign 
tongues; but we find the man who, when left to 
his own strength, denies his Master, now filled 
with a moral power which makes him bold to 
confess that Master’s name, before the Rulers of 
his people, and with a wisdom to speak according 
at once to the oracles of God, and the exigency of 
the moment. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 43 


After this first persecution was reported to the 
disciples generally, they, moved and distressed, 
appealed to the Lord in prayer, crying, “ And now, 
Lord, behold their threatenings; and grant unto 
Thy servants, that with all boldness they may 
speak Thy word.”” The answer to this prayer is 
recorded in terms more striking than in any other 
case, except that of Pentecost: “And when they 
had prayed, the place was shaken where they were 
assembled together; and they were all filled with 
the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God 
with boldness.” Here, being “filled with the 
Holy Ghost” was not followed by any miraculous 
effects whatever, but was an inspiration, the result 
of which is special moral strength—strength to 
confront danger and shame—strength to declare all 
the Gospel, though, in so doing, they perilled every 
interest dear to them. 

Our Lord had promised to His disciples miracu- 
lous light and power by the Spirit; but it was not as 
a miracle-working power that He had chiefly fore- 
told His coming. It was as a spiritual power, a 
comforter, a guide unto all truth, a revealer of 
the things of God, a remembrancer of the words of 
Christ; one who would convince the world of sin, of 
righteousness, and of judgment; one who would 
embolden the Lord’s servants to bear witness before 
the most terrible adversaries, and would guide their 
lips to wise and convincing speech. Had it been 


5 


44 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


His design that they should expect the Holy Spirit 
chiefly as a miraculous power, the leading promises 
would have had this aspect. 

When He first clearly proclaims that the Com- 
forter should come, as a substitute for His own 
presence, He marks the classes who shall know 
Him, and those who shall not. The distinction 
between them lies not in apostleship cr ministry, 
not in gifts or powers, but in being of the world, 
and “not of the world.” “Whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither 
knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth 
with you, and shall be in you.” * Not, “For He 
will work miracles by you.” That was not promised 
to all. Not, ‘“ He will prophesy by you.” That He 
did not promise to all. But He did promise to all 
who are “not of the world,” that He should dwell 
with them and be in them. Nor is this promise 
confined to the apostolic age, or to the times im- 
mediately succeeding. “That He may abide with 
you forever,” gives an interest in the personal in- 
fluences of the Comforter to the disciples of all 
ages, as well as to those of the first days. 

This promised substitute for the Personal pres- 
ence of Christ, was one whom the world should 
not see—who was to be invisible to the natural eye, 
undiscernible by the natural mind; yet known 
and discerned by believers, though not seen; 


* John xiv. 17. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 45 


known, not by outward sign, but by inward con- 
sciousness. Our Lord’s expression is to be strictly 
noted: “The world seeth Him not, neither knoweth 
Him; but ye know Him:” not, “ Ye see and know 
Him.” In one respect the disciples and the world 
were to be alike: neither should see Him. Yet 
the disciples should “know” Him; for “He 
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Their 
knowledge of Him was to come, not by sense, but 
by consciousness. Was this “being in them” to 
bean ordinary grace of believers, or to be coupled 
only with office or supernatural endowments? The 
want of it is made by St. Paul conclusive against 
the claim of any man to be considered even a 
member of Christ: “Ye are not in the flesh, but 
in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell 
in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of His.” This passage, how- 
ever, like many others, expresses only a participa- 
tion of the Spirit in some degree, without indicat- 
ing what that degree might be; leaving it open to 
doubt, were there no other passages bearing upon 
the point, whether some might not be blessed with 
the indwelling of the Spirit, who yet were to be 
debarred from the fuller privilege expressed in 
the strong words, “filled with the Holy Ghost.” 
The Apostles themselves had doubtless received 
the Spirit in some measure before the day of Pente- 
cost; for our Lord had breathed upon them im- 


< 
~, 


46, THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


mediately after His resurrection, and said, “ Re- 
ceive ye the Holy Ghost.” Yet in the time which 
intervened between then and Pentecost, whatever. 
might have been the advancement of their spiritual 
condition beyond what it was before, it rested far 
behind that which immediately followed upon 
the baptism of fire. It was only then that they 
were “filled with the Holy Ghost.” We find, how- 
ever, that even the expression, “ be filled,” is ap- 
plied broadly to ordinary believers; and that, 
too, not merely as describing the actual enjoyments 
of some individuals, but as a precept applicable 
to all: “Be not drunken with wine, wherein is 
excess, but be filled with the Spirit.” Whatever is 
meant by being “ filled with the Holy Ghost” is, 
by these plain words, laid upon us as our duty. 
Looking at it in the aspect of a duty, and think- 
ing of the moral height which the expression in- 
dicates above our ordinary life, we shrink. Can 
such an obligation lie upon us? Is it not com- 
manding the purblind to gaze upon the sun? And 
yet, whatever is the duty of man-must be the will 
of God. In this view, then, the commandment 
seems to carry even astronger encouragement than 
the promise —seems, in fact, to sum up many 
promises in one conclusive appeal, saying, “ ALL 
things are now ready. ‘The Lord has provided; the 
fountain is open; the pure river of the water of 
life, clear as crystal, is proceeding out of the 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 4” 


throne of God and of the Lamb; you are called to 
its banks, and with you it rests to drink and be 
filled with the Spirit.” 

He who has not received the Holy Ghost has 
not yet entered into the real Christian life, does 
not know the “peace which passeth understand- 
ing,” has in no sense “Christ in him, the hope 
of glory.” He isstill “in the flesh,” in his nat- 
ural and carnal state; for the Spirit of God does 
not dwell in him. ‘The difference between receiv- 
ing the Spirit, and being filled with the Spirit, 
is a difference not of kind, but of degree. In the 
one case, the light of heaven has reached the dark 
chamber, disturbing night, but leaving some ob- 
scurity and some deep shadows. In the other, 
that light has filled the whole chamber, and made 
every corner bright. This state of the soul—be- 
ing ‘filled with the Holy Ghost’’—is the normal 
antecedent of true prophetic or miraculous power, 
but may exist without it: without it, in individuals 
who are never endowed with the gift either of 
prophecy or of miracles; without it, in individuals 
who have such powers, but in whom they are not 
in action, as in John the Baptist, before his minis- 
try commenced. 

Eyesight is the necessary basis of what is called 
a painter’s or a poet’s eye; the sense of hearing, 
the necessary basis of what is called a musical 
ear; yet eyesight may exist where there is no poet’s 


48 , THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


or painter’s eye, and hearing where there is no 
musical ear. So may the human soul be “ filled 
with the Holy Ghost,” having every faculty illumi- 
nated, and every affection purified, without any 
miraculous gift. On the other hand, the miracu- 
lous power does not necessarily imply the spiritual 
fulness; for Paul puts the supposition of speaking 
with tongues, prophesying, removing mountains, 
and yet lacking charity, that love which must be 
shed abroad in every heart that is full of the Holy 
Ghost. 

“Filled with the Holy Ghost!” Thrice blessed 
word! thanks be to God that ever the tongues of - 
men were taught it! It declares, not only that 
the Lord has returned to His temple in the human 
soul, but that He has filled the house with His 
glory; pervaded every chamber, every court, by 
His manifested presence. 

“That ye might be filled with all the fulness of 
God,” is a prayer at which we falter. Is it not 
too much to ask? Is it not a sublime flight after 
the impossible? Let us remember it is not, “ That 
ye might contain all the fulness of God.” That 
would be more impossible than that your chamber 
should contain all the ight of the sun. But it 
can be filled with the lLght of the sun—so filled 
that not a particle of unillumined air shall remain 
within it. When, therefore, the hand of the 
Apostle leads you up toward the countenance of 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 49 


your Father; when you approach to see the light 
which outshines all lights, “the glory of God in 
the face of Christ Jesus,” put away all thought of 
containing what the heavens cannot contain, but, 
humbly opening thy heart, say, “Infinite light, 
fill this little chamber! ” 

Reason says, “It may be;”’ Scripture says, “It 
may be;’ but a shrinking of the heart says, 
“Tt cannot be; we can never ‘ be filled with all the 
fulness of God.’”? When Paul had uttered that 
prayer, perhaps this same shrinking of heart had 
almost come over him: how does he meet it? 
Glancing down at his wonderful petition, and up 
at his Almighty King, he breaks out, “ Now unto 
Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above 
all that we ask or think, according to the power 
that worketh in us; unto Him be glory in the 
Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world 
withoutend. Amen.” Yea, Amen, ten thousand 
thousand times. The words of this doxology had 
been holy and blessed in any connection; but they 
are doubly blessed, closely following, as they do, 
the prayer, “That ye might be filled with all the 
fulness of God.”’ Nor should we forget that the 
power which Paul here adores is not some abstract 
and unmoved power of Deity, but “the power 
which worketh in us.” What is this power? The 
Holy Ghost—“ might by His Spirit in the inner 
man.” 


50 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


What a labor of expression do we find in 2 Cor. 
ix. 8, when Paul wants to convey his own idea of 
the power of grace, as practically enabling men 
to do the will of God! “And God is able to 
make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always 
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to 
every good work.” Here we have “ abound ”’ twice, 
and “all” four times, in one short sentence.* 
‘“ Abound” means not only to fill, but to overflow. 
The double overflow, first of grace from God to 
us, then of the same grace from us to “every good 
work,” is a glorious comment on our Lord’s word, 
“ He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath 
said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
water. But this spake He of the Spirit which they 
that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy 
Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was 
not yet glorified.” The believer’s heart, in itself 
incapable of holy living, as a marble cistern of 
yielding a constant stream, is placed, like the 
cistern, in communication with an invisible source; 
the source constantly overflows into the cistern, 
and it again overflows. Happy the heart thus 
filled, thus overflowing with the Holy Spirit! 
Where is the fountain of these living waters, that 
we may bring our hearts thither? ‘He showed 
me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, 


*In the Greek dc occurs five times, the last being zap 
épyov ayabév, rendered “every good work.” 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 51 


proceeding out of the throne of God and of the 
Lamb.” * There isthe fount, there the stream; the 
Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. 
To the throne of grace! to the mercy-seat! and you 
are at the fountain of all life. Never seek a scant 
supply at that source. “ Be filled with the Spirit ” 
sounds in your ears; and, if you believe, not only 
will a well “spring up within” you, but rivers 
shall flow out from you. 

The Spirit, as replenishing the believer with 
actual virtues and practical holiness, is ever kept 
before our eye in the apostolic writings. “That 
ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleas- 
ing, being fruitful in every good work, and in- 
creasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened 
with all might, according to His glorious power, 
unto all patience and long-suffering with joyful- 


. ness.” 


Putting these various expressions together, what 
a view do they give of the riches of grace!—“ all 
sufficiency,” “in all things, always,” “ abound 
to every good work,” “fruitful in every good 
work,” “strengthened with all might,” “ accord- 
ing to His glorious power,” “according to the 
power which worketh in us,” “filled with all the 
fulness of God.” Eternal Spirit, proceeding from 
the Father and the Son, answer and disperse all 
our unbelief by filling our hearts with Thyself! 


99 6 »9 66 


* Rev. xxii. 1. 


52 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


II.—The Human Spirit restored to its Original and High- 
est Fellowship. 


The expression, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” 
places before us the human spirit restored to its 
original and highest fellowship. In many respects 
that spirit is alone in this world. It finds here 
nothing that is its own equal. Everything upon 
which it can look is its inferior in both nature and 
powers. Harth and sky, beasts and birds, are the 
instruments of its comfort, or the subjects of its © 
thoughts; but never can share in its cares or affec- 
tions. The fields never say, ““ We enjoy thy pres- 
ence,” nor the stars, ‘““ We return thine admira- 
tion.’”’ The lower animals can take no part in its 
deep movements of hope and fear; can shed no 
light on its problems of justice, pardon, and the 
world to come. In the spirit of its fellow-man 
alone can it find an equal; and communion with 
this, though it often solaces, often both wounds and 
defiles. Yet itis the nature of man to seek an 
object kindred to himself, but superior. Probably 
this is necessary to all natures which are at the 
same time rational and finite. But where can 
man find a being kindred to himself, and yet su- 
perior to him? Below the sky he is head, yet up- 
ward his instincts turn—upward toward some one 
brighter or greater than himself. 

What can answer to those upward aspirations 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 53 


of the soul? Its Creator. After years spent in 
search of happiness, the human spirit penitently 
returns toward its God, and, trusting in the atone- 
ment of His Son, finds forgiveness for the past. 
Then does the great Comforter, the Witness of the 
Father’s love, the Spirit of adoption, give the 
manifestation of the Divine favor which David 
delighted to call “the light of Thy countenance.” 
This manifestation may be gentle, or it may be 
rapturous; butin any case itiscomforting. When 
gentlest, it touches chords of satisfaction more 
delicate than were ever reached by the most subtle 
joy of intellect; when most rapturous, it carries 
with it an assent of the whole judgment such as 
no previous enjoyment, however tranquil, com- 
manded. The thirst of the soul has no deeper seat 
than is now reached. Wisdom has no remon- 
strance, expectation no disappointment, fear no 
warning. It may be in a profound calm, it may 
be in an unspeakable joy; but it is with core-deep 
consciousness that the soul feels it has now touched, 
yea, tasted, its supreme good, and that, for time 
or for eternity, it needs no more than to abide in 
this blessedness, and improve this fellowship. 
The gloomy chamber of which we spoke a little 
while ago was entered by the sunbeams noiselessly | 
and impalpably; no hand could feel, no ear could 
hear, them as they came; nothing but an eye within 
that chamber could discern the great change. It 


54 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


remains the same chamber, with the same con- 
tents; yet everything is changed, even to the very 
air. So it is with the soul of man when the Lord 
saith, “‘ My Father will love him, and We will come 
unto him, and make our abode with him.” This 
is not only the presence of God with the spirit of 
man, but a special and a manifested presence. 
How can that be special which is universal? 
God is not far from every one of us; every man 
who moves upon the earth moves in Him. How, 
then, can He be specially present with one man 
more than with another? Strictly speaking, per- 
haps it is more a question of manifestation than 
of presence. Llectric agency may be present every- 
where; but it rarely makes itself visible in a flash. 
Heat may be present everywhere; but it is not 
everywhere manifested by fire. Jude said, “ Lord, 
how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, 
and not unto the world?”’ God is with all, but is 
unseen by any eye, and, alas! undiscerned by 
many a spirit. He does not withdraw His pres- 
ence from any part of His universe, or His care 
from any of His creatures; but, as a human frame 
may be moving amid the light of the sun, and see 
no light, so may a soul be moving in that universe 
which is fuller of God than the atmosphere at 
noontide is of sunbeams, and yet discern no God. 
All objects require a suitable faculty, or they 
are unperceived: sound exists not to the eye; light 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 55 


exists not to the ear; flavor exists not to the 
touch. It igs of no avail that an object is, unless 
our nature has the special faculty whereby we can 
descry its presence. A strong magnetic power 
may be acting on the compass, whereon the steers- 
man concentrates his attention; but eye, ear, hand, 
smell, taste, give no report of its presence to the 
mind; and he first learns that it was there, by the 
crash of the ship on a coast which he thought was 
far away. 

Our Lord said, in reply to Jude, “If any man 
love Me, he will keep My word; and My Father 
will love him, and We will come unto him, and 
make Our abode with him.” This is more than 
mere presence. Presence may be unfelt, and 
therefore forgotten; may be with displeasure, and 
therefore joyless. But this is presence mazi- 
fested—“ We will come to him;” gracious—the 
coming is from “love;” habitual and tvolving 
friendship—both of these ideas lie in, “ Make Our 
abode with him.” 

Two men are walking upon the same plain, and 
each turns his face toward the sky. The light of 
the sun is shining upon both, but one sees no sun, 
while the other sees, not only light, but the face 
of the sun, and his eye is overpowered with its 
glory. What makes the difference between the 
two? Not that one isin darkness, and the other 
in light; not that one is near the sun, and the 


56 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


other far away; not that one has an eye differently 
constituted from the other; but simply that there 
is a thin cloud between heaven and the one, and 
no cloud between it and the other. The latter 
can not only trace evidence that there is a sun, 
and that he is up, but has the presence of that sun 
before his face, and his glory filling his eye. So 
two men stand in relation to the universal and 
all-present God. One believes, infers, intellectu- 
ally knows, that He is; ay, that He is present ; 
yet he discerns Him not; it is a matter of infer- 
ence, not of consciousness; and though believing 
that God is, and that He is present, he sins. An- 
other spiritually discerns, feels His presence; and 
he learns to “stand in awe, and sin not.” 

Suppose the case of a cripple who had spent his 
life in a room where the sun was never seen. He 
has heard of its existence, he believes in it, and, 
indeed, has seen enough of its light to give him 
high ideas of its glory. Wishing to see the sun, 
he is taken out at night into the streets of an il- 
luminated city. At first he is delighted, dazzled ; 
but, after he has had time to reflect, he finds dark- 
ness spread amid the lights, and he asks, “Is this 
the sun?” He is taken out under the starry sky, 
and is enraptured; but on reflection finds that 
night covers the earth, and again asks, “Is this the 
sun?” He is carried out some bright day at noon- 
tide, and no sooner does his eye open on the sky than 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 5Y 


all question is at an end. Thereis butone sun. 
His eye is content: it has seen its highest object, 
and feels that there is nothing brighter. So with 
the soul: it enjoysall ights; yet, amid those of art 
and nature, is still inquiring for something greater. 
But when it is led by the reconciling Christ into 
the presence of the Father, and He lifts up upon it 
the light of His countenance, all thought of any- 
thing greater disappears. As there is but one 
sun, so there is but one God. The soul which 
once discerns and knows Him, feels that greater 
or brighter there is none, and that the only possi- 
bility of ever beholding more glory is by drawing 
nearer. 


IlI.—The Nature of Man quickened by an Impartation of 
the Divine Nature. 


The operation of the Holy Spirit implies a 
quickening of the nature of man by an imparta- 
tion of the Divine nature, and every increase of 
it implies a fuller communion of the Eternal 
Father with His adopted child. When the soul 
of man is “ filled with the Holy Ghost,” then has 
God that wherein He does rejoice, “a temple, not 
made with hands,” not reared by human art, of 
unconscious and insensible material; a temple 
created by His own word, and living by His own 
breath. In that living temple He displays some- 
what of His glory. In the Shekinah of the 


58 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


sanctuary He could manifest majesty only. In 
this living temple He can manifest truth, purity, 
tenderness, forgiveness, justice—the whole round 
of such attributes as His children below the sky are 
capable of comprehending. 

Thus inhabited, not only is the soul of man un- 
utterably blessed, but his body reaches dignity, 
the thought of which might make eyen flesh sing. 
“ Your Bopy is the temple of the Holy Ghost 
which isin you, which ye have of God: and ye 
are not your own.” Not your own, for purchase 
has been made: “Ye are bought with a price;” 
not your own, for possession has been taken: “ Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that 
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” * A holy man, 
whose presence breathes an unworldly air around 
him, whose name is identified with a constancy of 
godly actions, is a visible monument and remem- 
brancer of God. Hach member of his body is as 
a temple vessel. By it holy works are done, and 
the will of the Spirit on moral points is expressed 
by material instruments. His “mortal body”’ is 
quickened by the Spirit “that dwelleth in him.” 
He not only “fives in the Spirit,” but “walks in 
the Spirit ’—his visible acts, as well as his hidden 
emotions, being “after the Spirit.” The natural 
man has disappeared from his life and actions. 
Another creature lives. Thoughts, purposes, 

* Cor. iii. 16, ete. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 59 


works, which his nature never prompted, which, 
when prompted by revelation, his nature could 
not attain to, now abound, as sweet grapes on a 
good vine. ‘This precept is embodied in his life: 
“ Neither yield ye your members as instruments of 
unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto 
God as those that are alive from the dead, and 
your members as instruments of righteousness unto 
God.” * 

In this the power of the Holy Ghost is practi- 
cally manifested, by a reversal of the relations of 
the human spirit and the flesh. To persons yet 
in the body, the Apostle says, “ Ye are not in the 
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be the Spirit of God 
dwell in you.”” Not in the flesh, yet in the body! 
The unconverted man has a spirit, but it is car- 
nalized; the play of its powers—the studies of the 
intellect, the flights of the imagination, the im- 
pulses of the heart, are dictated by motives which 
all range below the sky, and halt on this side of 
the tomb. The spirit is the servant of the flesh; 
and man differs from perishing animals chiefly in 
this, that for carnal purposes and delights he com- 
mands the service of a spiritual agent—his own 
soul. 

The Holy Spirit, as man’s regenerator, reverses 
this state of things. He quickens the spirit, and 
through it quickens the frame, so that instead of 


* Rom. vi. 13. 
6 


60 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


spiritual powers being carnalized, a mortal body 
is spiritualized; instead of soul and spirit being 
subjected by the flesh, flesh and blood become in- 
struments of the spirit. Limbs move on works 
of heavenly origin and intent. Thus a direct 
connection is established between the will of the 
Supreme Spirit and the material organs of man. 
A purpose originates in the mind of God; by His 
Spirit it is silently and swiftly transmitted to the 
spirit of His child; and by this to the “mortal 
body.” ‘Then, as an iron wire, on the shore of the 
Crimea, expresses the will of our Queen in London, 
so do the earthly members of a mortal express, in 
the outward and physical world, the purpose of 
the Holy One. This is redemption achieved: this 
is adoption in its issues: this is the new life: this 
is human nature restored, man walking in the 
light; “God dwelling in him, and hein God.” 
Then is his life a light, and a light so pure that 
it gives those on whom it shines, not the idea of 
“good nature,”’ but of something heavenly. They 
see his good works, and “glorify his Father which 
is in heaven:” not extol his character; but feel 
that he is raised above his own character, and is 
“ God’s workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus 
unto good works.” 

A piece of iron is dark and cold; imbued with 
a certain degree of heat, it becomes almost burn- 
ing, without any change of appearance; imbued 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 61 


with a still greater degree, its very appearance 
changes to that of solid fire, and it sets fire to 
whatever it touches. A piece of water without 
heat is solid and brittle; gently warmed, it flows; 
further heated, it mounts to the sky. An organ 
filled with the ordinary degree of air which exists 
everywhere is dumb; the touch of the player can 
elicit but a clicking of the keys. Throw in, not 
other air, but an unsteady current of the same air, 
and sweet, but imperfect and uncertain, notes im- 
mediately respond to the player’s touch; increase 
the current to a full supply, and every pipe swells 
with music. Such is the soul without the Holy 
Ghost; and such are the changes which pass upon 
it when it receives the Holy Ghost, and when it 
is “filled with the Holy Ghost.” In the latter 
state only is it fully imbued with the Divine na- 
ture, bearing in all its manifestations some plain 
resemblance to its God, conveying to all on whom 
it acts some impression of Him, mounting heaven- 
wardin all its movements, and harmoniously pour- 
ing forth, from all its faculties, the praises of the 
Lord. 


IV.—Hxamples of God’s Moral “ Workmanship.” 


The moral change wrought in the disciples by 
the new baptism of the Spirit, is strikingly dis- 
played in the case of one man. A difficult service 
was to be performed in Jerusalem that day. Had 


62 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


it been desired to find a man in London who would 
go down to Whitehall a few weeks after Charles 
was beheaded, and, addressing Cromwell’s soldiers, 
would endeavor to persuade them that he whom 
they had executed was not only a King, and a good 
one, but a Prophet of God, and that, therefore, 
they had been guilty of more than regicide—of 
sacrilege; although England had brave men then, 
it may be questioned whether any one could have 
been found to bear such a message to that audience. 

The service which had once to be performed in 
Jerusalem was similar to this. It was needful 
that some one should stand up under the shadow 
of the temple, and, braving Chief Priests and 
mobs alike, assert that He whom they had shame- 
fully executed seven weeks before was Israel’s long- 
looked for Messiah; that they had been guilty of 
asin which had no name; had raised their hands 
against “God manifest in the flesh;” had, in 
words strange to human ears, “ killed the Prince 
of Life.” Who was thus to confront the rage of 
the mob and the malice of the priests? We seea 
man rising, filled with a holy fire, so that he totally 
forgets his danger, and seems not even conscious 
that he is doing a heroic act. He casts back upon 
the mockers their charge, and proceeds to open 
and to press home his tremendous accusation, as if 
he were a king upon a throne, and each man be- 
fore him a lonely and defenceless culprit. 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 63 


Who is this man? Have we not seen him before? 
Is it possible that it can be Peter? We know him 
of old; he has a good deal of zeal, but little steadi- 
ness; he means well, and, when matters are 
smooth, can serve well; but when difficulties and 
adversaries rise before him, his moral courage 
fails. Howshort atime is it ago since we saw him 
tried! He had been resolving that, come what 
might, he would stand by his Master to the last. 
Others might flinch, he would stand. Soon the 
Master was in the hands of enemies. Yet His case 
was by no means lost. The Governor was on His 
side; many of the people were secretly for Him; 
nothing could be proved against Him; and, above 
all, He who had saved others could save Himself, 
Yet, as Peter saw scowling faces, his courage 
failed. A servant-maid looked into his eye; and 
his eye fell. She said she thought he belonged to 
Jesus of Nazareth; his heart sank, and he said 
“No.” Then another looked in his face, and re- 
peated the same suspicion. Now, of course, he was 
more cowardly, and repeated his “ No.” <A third 
looked upon him, and insisted that he belonged to 
the accused Prophet. Now his poor heart was all 
fluttering, and, to make it plain that he had noth- 
ing to do with Jesus of Nazareth, he began to curse 
and swear. 

Is it within the same breast where this pale and 
tremulous heart quaked that we see glowing a 


64 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


brave heart, which dreads neither the power of 
the authorities nor the violence of the populace; 
which faces every prejudice and every vice of 
Jerusalem, every bitter Pharisee, and every street 
brawler, as if they were no more than straying and 
troublesome sheep? Is the Peter of Pilate’s hall 
the Peter of Pentecost, with the same natural 
powers, the same natural force of character, the 
same training, and the same resolutions? If so, 
what a difference is made in a man by the one ad- 
dition of being filled with the Holy Ghost! 

O for high examples of God’s moral “ workman- 
ship’! O for men instinct with the Spirit; the 
countenance glowing as a transparency with a 
lamp behind it; the eye shining with a purer, 
truer light than any that genius or good nature 
ever shed; limbs agile for any act of prayer, of 
praise, of zeal, for any errand of compassion! and 
atongue of fire! O for men on whom the silent ver- 
dict of the observer would be, “ He is a good man, 
and full of the Holy Ghost!” Never, perhaps, did 
earthly eyes see more frequently than we see in our 
day men with ordinary Christian excellences—men 
in private life whose walk is blameless—men in the 
ministry who are admirable, worthy, and useful. 
But are not men “ FULL OF THE HoLy GuHost” arare 
and minished race? Are those whose entire spirit 
bespeaks a walk of prayer, such as we should ascribe 
to Enoch or to John; whose words fall with a 


SPIRITUAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 65 


demonstration of the Spirit, and a power such as 
we conceive attended Paul or Apollos; who make 
on believers the impression of being immediate 
and mighty instruments of God, and on unbelievers 
the impression of being dangerous to come near, 
lest they should convert them—are such men often 
met with? | 

Do not even the good frequently speak as if we 
were not to look for such burning and shining 
lights? as if we must be content in our educated 
and intelligent age with astyle of holiness more 
level and less startling? Do not many make up 
their minds never more to see men such as their 
fathers saw; men at whose prayer a wondrous 
power of God was ever ready to fall, whether upon 
two or three kneeling in a cabin, and wondering 
how the unlearned could find such wisdom, or on 
the great multitude, wondering how the learned 
could find such simplicity? Never more see such 
men! The Lord forbid! Return, O Power of 
the Pentecost, return to Thy people! Shed down 
Thy flame on many heads! To us, as to our 
fathers, and to those of the old time before them, 
give fulness of grace! Without Thee we can do 
nothing; but, filled with the Holy Ghost, the ex- 
cellency of the power will be of Thee, O God! and 
not of us. 


CHAPTER V. 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 


I.—The Most Amazing of all Miracles. 


“THEY began to speak with other tongues, as 
the Spirit gave them utterance.” It is not said, 
“with unknown tongues.” In fact, the ex- 
pression, “unknown tongues,” was never used by 
an inspired writer. In the Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, it is found in the English version; but the 
word “unknown” is in italics, showing that it is 
not taken from the original. Speaking unknown 
tongues was never heard of in the apostolic days. 
That miracle first occurred in London some years 
ago. On the day of Pentecost no man pretended 
to speak unknown tongues; but, just as if we in 
London suddenly began to speak German, French, 
Spanish, Russian, Turkish, and other foreign 
languages, so it was with them. Not one tongue 
was spoken that day but a man was found in the 
streets of Jerusalem to turn round and cry, “This 
is my own tongue, wherein I was born!” The 
miracle lay in the power of speaking the tongues 
of adjacent nations, from which individuals were 


in Jerusalem at that very time. ‘This is not only 
66 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 67 


miraculous, but a miracle in a very amazing form; 
perhaps, as to its form, the most amazing of all 
miracles. 

Matter isa great and pregnant thing. To us its 
properties are not only wonderful, but exceedingly 
mysterious. When we see it flourishing while we 
fade, towering in hills, or careering in waves, or 
spread out in the firmament, we almost feel as if it 
were greater than we. Yet are we ever proving 
that, in spite of appearances, matter is less than 
mind. Mind searches out matter, wields it, 
moulds it, makes it the servant of its will. Muind, 
then, being the superior, it follows that a work 
wrought in mind is greater than one wrought in 
matter. Miracles in seas, mountains, the firma- 
ment, or the human body, display a power which 
rules the frame of nature and the frame of man. 
Yet, asthe sphere of these is matter, the whole 
order may be called the PHYSICAL MIRACLE—Wworks 
above nature wrought upon physical agents in at- 
testation of the revelation of God. But beyond 
this lies a higher miracle, of which the sphere is 
mind; and which, therefore, we may call the 
MENTAL MIRACLE—works above nature wrought in 
mind in attestation of the revelation of God. Of 
this order two forms had been witnessed previ- 
ously—inspiration and prophecy; but now a new 
miracle in mind was to challenge the belief of all 
Jerusalem. 


68 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


This miracle, as to its moral impression, differed 
totally from all physical miracles; even from that 
complex and most peculiar miracle, the raising of 
the dead, wherein we see a power which matter 
and spirit, animal life and mental illumination, 
equally obey. That miracle stands alone; yet the 
chief impression which it makes, and certainly 
the impression which all purely physical miracles 
make, is that of power. They suggest also, in- 
deed, the idea of wisdom, else the power would 
not go so unerringly to its end; and of goodness, 
clse power so irresistible would move, not to bless, 
but to destroy; yet the leading impression produced | 
is undoubtedly that of power. In such miracles 
we recognize chiefly “the high hand, and the 
stretched-out arm.”’ 

In inspiration, we see the mind of man enabled 
to sit down among the morning mists of things, 
and to write a book which will stand while the 
world stands. In prophecy, we see the mind en- 
abled to look through a thousand years, and de- 
scribe what lies beyond so plainly, that, when it 
is unfolded to ordinary sight, it shall at once be 
recognized. Both these miracles bring us, not so 
much into the presence of a Ruler, as into the 
presence of a Spirit. 

In beholding a sea dried, or a wilderness strewn 
with food, we feel ourselves near the Lord of na- 
ture and the Stay of life. So here we feel ourselves 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 69 


near the Fount of all mind, whose own knowledge 
depends neither on material phenomena, nor on 
the lapse of time; whose mode of acting on the 
human mind is not by laws analogous to those 
whereby the latter acts on material organs, or on 
its kindred minds through them. As, however, 
we watch the miracle of tongues, a strange solem- 
nity falls upon us: we feel as if we had left the 
region where mind slowly and dimly learns through 
sense, had crossed some invisible line into the land 
of spirits, and were standing before the Original 
Mind. What knowledge of mind so minute, as 
that which scans every sign whereby every mind 
expresses its ideas? What power over mind so 
unsearchable, as that which can fill it in an instant 
with new signs for all its ideas—signs never before 
present to it, yet answering exactly to those which 
others had been trained from childhood to use? 

A number of Galilean peasants issue from an 
upper room into the streets of Jerusalem. A 
strange fire is in every eye, a strange light on 
every countenance. ach one looks joyful and 
benignant, as if he was carrying in his breast the 
balm for the world’s sore. Hach has plainly a 
word to say, and wants listeners. Probably their 
steps turn toward the temple, which during the 
ten days had divided their presence with the upper 
room. One meets with an Arab, and addresses 
him; another goes up to a Roman, and in a mo- 


70 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ment they are deeply engaged; a third sees a 
Persian; a fourth an African from Cyrene; and, 
as they go along, each one attaches himself to 
some foreigner. He tells a strange tale, strange 
in its substance, equally strange in its eloquence; 
a new and unaccountable eloquence, wonderful, not 
for grace, expression, or sweet sound, but for power. 
One hearer in Latin, another in Coptic, another in 
Persian, another in Greek, exclaims first at the 
wonder of the story, and then at the wonder of the 
narrator: “Art not thou a Galilean? whence, 
then, hast thou this fluency in Latin?’”’ He answers, 
that he has received it to-day by gift from God. 
A smile curls on the lip of the Roman, and he turns 
round to aneighboring group. There an Egyptian 
has just been putting the same question, and re- 
ceived the same answer. Yonder isan excited little 
knot, where a Parthian declares that the tongue in 
which a man has told him of the death, resurrec- 
tion, and ascension of Jesus, is his mother tongue. 
People from Jerusalem are mocking, and saying, 
“The men are full of new wine;” but the strangers, 
on speaking one to another, find that they have all 
been hearing precisely the same things in their 
“own tongues.”’ 

Those faces of different complexions, on com- 
paring their opinions, darkle with awe. They 
find that in all this diversity of tongues the same 
tidings are repeated, and thus see the unity of 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 1%] 


matter in the variety of language; they find that 
the men who speak are unschooled peasants, yet 
are all gifted with the same unheard-of power; 
and thus see in the variety of speakers the unity 
of inspiration. The tongues are the tongues of all 
mankind; but the impulse is one, and the message 
one! From what centre do all these languages 
issue? The same instinct which leads back the 
thought from speech to a mind, leads it back 
from this universal speech till it stands awe-struck 
in the presence of the Central Intellect, of the 
Spirit which “formeth the spirit of man within 
him,” of the Supreme Mind, to which all mind is 
common ground—of the Father of Thought! 

It would be impossible to conceive any form 
of credential so well framed to certify that a 
doctrine was the immediate use of the mind of 
God. The bare thought of such a miracle as that 
of tongues, had it only been a thought, would 
have made in itself an era in the history of man’s 
intellect; and it may be fairly questioned whether 
such a thought could have originated in anything 
else than in the fact. The leading feature of the 
new religion was to be a Divine teaching upon 
things invisible and spiritual—on points of which 
the unaided powers of man could give no conclu- 
sive solution. For such a teaching no attestation 
could be so apposite as one that accredited it asa 
message from the Spirit which “searcheth all 


72 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


things.”’ The universal call’ to a man was worthily 
issued into the world by a sign which showed that 
it came directly from the only wise God, who 
gives understanding, and holds the keys of 
thought. The command of all languages, by one 
consentaneous impulse, proclaimed the new mes- 
sage to be the WorD OF Gop. 


IIl.—The Word of God to all Nations. 


The great question for humanity is, Hath God 
spoken? Are we poor wanderers, each left here 
to his own light, and Heaven looking down in © 
eternal silence on all our straying and perplexity? 
Hath the Parent Spirit, whence these spirits of 
ours come, surrounded them with His infinite 
presence at every step of their stumbling and 
perilous journey, and never once, from the day of 
Adam to our day, signified that He saw, and heard, 
and felt? Has He dealt with the soul of man, as 
with “the spirit of a beast” that could never bless 
Him, and never break His law? Are all words 
the words of erring man, and all lights those 
doubtful or deceptive lights, following which so 
many have miserably perished? Is all doctrine the 
guesses of thinkers, or the juggling of priests? 
Has God never, never spoken? 

“GoD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS, AND SAID!” 
On the Pentecost of Israel, from out of the fire on 
Sinai, came “a mighty voice,” which, sweeping 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 73 


down from the distant peak as if from a throne at 
hand, filled the ears of three millions of people, or 
more, as if they had been a little group. ‘Ten 
times THE VOICE sounded mysteriously over all 
that awed and quivering host, till human nature, 
smitten to the core, cried out, “ We die, we die.” 
The Voice had uttered only gentle and whole- 
some laws, laws binding man to God, and man to 
man, laying sure paths to peace and _ blessedness; 
but human nature was already guilty under these 
laws, and the VoicE awoke only the response, “ Let 
not God speak with us, lest we die.” * 

Thus, in the old time, a whole nation could be 
appealed to, that all words were not uncertain, 
nor all questions open: “ Ye came near and stood 
under the mountain: and the mountain burned 
with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, 
clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake 
unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard 
the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; 
only ye heard a voice. And He declared unto 
you His covenant which He commanded you 
to perform, even ten commandments; and He 
wrote them upon two tables of stone.” 

As in the Pentecost of Israel, so in the Pente- 
cost of Christianity, the Lord once more speaks 
“out of the midst of the fire.” Now, however, 
the accompanying tokens are not physical, but 

ECX Ose Rv t a), 


74 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


mental: employing many human minds and human 
tongues as His instruments, yet manifesting the 
unity of that impulse whereby they are all moved, 
He makes not merely the people of one nation, 
but the representatives of all nations, feel that 
GOD HATH SPOKEN. Yes, tell it wherever there 
are ears to hear, tell it to the ends of the earth, 
God hath spoken; man has not been forgotten; 
guesses are not all our light; there is a Gospel, a 
‘speech of God;”’ questions affecting salvation are 
settled; and our way to holy living and happy dy- 
ing is traced by the Hand which rules both worlds. 

With regard to the gift of tongues, some curi- 
ous questions have been raised, especially by the 
learned. One is as to whether the miracle was 
really in the speaker, and not in-the hearer; so 
that although all that was spoken was in one 
language, the ordinary language of the disciples, 
yet the hearers of different nations each heard in 
his own tongue. For this opinion, as for all 
opinions, it is possible to cite some considerable 
names. But had it been as here supposed, the 
symbol of the miracle would not have been cloven 
tongues, but manifold ears. ‘The double declara- 
tion of the narrative perfectly eorresponds with 
the symbol. As regards the speakers, it says that 
they “spake with other tongues;” as regards the 
hearers, that they “heard every man in his own 
tongue.” 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 75 


When St. Paul finds fault with the use of the 
gift of tongues in Corinth, he does not blame the 
hearers for lacking an ear that would interpret 
their own tongue into foreign ones, but blames 
the speakers for speaking ‘“‘ with the tongue words 
not easy to be understood” by the unlearned; 
and the only reason he ever assigns why the audi- 
tors could not understand is, that they were un- 
learned; clearly showing that a foreign language 
was employed, which education might have en- 
abled them to understand, but for the understand- 
ing of which miraculous power does not seem ever 
to have been given. If the supposition of the 
miracle in hearing, instead of in speech, has been 
resorted to with a view to simplify the miracle, it 
defeats its own object; for, to sustain that suppo- 
sition, the miraculous influence must have been 
exerted on a number of persons, as much greater 
than in the other case, as the hearers were more 
numerous than the speakers. At the same time, 
the nature of the miraculous operation would be 
in every respect equally extraordinary. 

Another question is as to whether the speakers 
understood what they said in the foreign lan- 
guages. ‘The doubt as to this is not raised upon 
the narrative of the Pentecost, but on certain ex- 
pressions used by St. Paul in writing to the Corin- 
thians. There he says, “ Let him that speaketh 
in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret ;” 

7 


"6 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


and again, “If one speak in an unknown tongue, 
let one interpret.’’ Hence it would appear that 
some could speak with tongues, who could not 
render into their own language that which they 
had spoken. This, however, is not clear; for he 
also says, “ Greater is he that prophesieth than he 
that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, 
that the Church may receive edification.’ Here 
he supposes, that the person who possesses the gift 
of tongues, does also possess the power of interpret- 
ing into the common language, that which he has 
uttered in a miraculous way. 

But, even granting that some were unable to 
interpret, so as to edify the Church, that which 
they had themselves spoken, it would appear that 
this did not at all arise from their not understand- 
ing what they had said, but from their being des- 
titute of the gift of prophecy, whereby only they 
could edify believers. As to any doubt whether 
the person speaking really understood his own ut- 
terances, it is completely removed by the text, 1 
Cor. xiv. 14-19: “For if I pray in an unknown 
tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding 
is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray 
with the spirit, and I will pray with the under- 
standing also: I will sing with the spirit, and I 
will sing with the understanding also. Else when 
thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that 
occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE %4 


thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not 
what thou sayest? For thou verily givest thanks 
well, but the other is not edified. I thank my 
God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: yet in 
the Church I had rather speak five words with my 
understanding, that by my voice I might teach 
others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown 
tongue.” Here, publicly praising “with the un- 
derstanding” is taken to be, so praising that 
a common man may understand; and publicly 
preaching “with the understanding” is taken to 
be, so to speak as to “teach others also.” To 
praise and to preach in public without these, is 
to act without understanding. The words, “He 
understandeth not what thou sayest,” though 
“thou verily givest thanks well,” settle the whole 
_ matter. They take it for granted—as, indeed, the 
Apostle does all through, that the speaker clearly 
understands himself; but the fault is, that he uses 
speech which was never given for the sake of inter- 
_ course with God, but for that of intercourse with 
man, in a way that defeats its own object. Speech 
is man’s revelation of his own spirit to his fellow- 
men; and when nothing is revealed, it becomes a 
mockery. Feelings and thoughts are the language 
which God listens to: man hearkens in the air, 
God in the soul within. To speak to Him we need 
no sounds: sounds are for human ears, and useful 
only when the ear can recognize the meaning. 


78 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


The fact that some who could not prophesy could 
yet speak with tongues, is apparent in several 
parts of Scripture, and is a singular proof at once 
of the generality and the diversity of gifts. The 
lower gift, that of tongues, was more generally 
diffused than the higher, that of prophecy. 

The miracle indicated not only the origin of the 
new doctrine, but also its SPHERE. It was a mes- 
sage from the Father of men to all men. National 
diversities, instead of being a barrier before which 
it stood still, were opportunities to display its 
universal adaption. Each various tongue was 
made an additional witness that it had come for 
“every people under heaven.” Our Lord’s last 
words, “the uttermost part of the earth,” had 
here a strange and multiplying echo. A force 
was set in motion which claimed all humanity as 
its field; a voice was lifted up which called upon 
every nation to join its audience. 


III.—All Disciples set upon Spiritual Services. 


Again, this manifestation met and answered all 
doubts which might have arisen as to the power 
of our Lord to gift His servants with language 
and utterance needful for their coming contest 
with the whole world. He had told them that, 
when brought before Rulers and Kings for His 
name’s sake, it would be given to them what they 
should say: “ For it is not ye that speak, but the 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 79 


Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” * 
He had evidently referred to such Divine aid in 
speech when He told them that they should receive 
power after that the Holy Ghost was come upon 
them, and that they should be His witnesses, even 
“to the uttermost part of the earth.” Moses had 
feared to plead before Pharaoh, from a dread that 
utterance equal to the gravity of the mission could 
not be givento him. Jeremiah had feared on a 
similar ground. 

Nothing is more natural than that one who feels 
himself charged with a sublime truth, on the 
proper delivery of which infinite interests depend, 
should distrust his ability to frame suitable lan- 
guage. It is very probable that such thoughts 
had troubled the disciples in the contemplation 
of the great work which lay before them. If so, 
what an answer did they receive in the miracle of 
tongues! He who enabled their lips to pour forth 
the testimony in words they had never spoken, 
and never heard, could surely give them every 
measure of propriety, of clearness, of copiousness, 
of power, whereof human speech was capable. 
All questions as to how fluent diction could be 
imparted to the unready and force to the feeble, 
how the slow could be made impressive, and the 
tame eloquent, were here answered. The old 
promise, “I will be with thy mouth,” received an 

* Matt. x. 20. 


80 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


unlooked-for commentary. ‘The effects which the 
Spirit of the Lord could produce upon the human 
tongue were shown to be illimitable by any nat- 
ural impediment. The ground of confidence as 
to their success in preaching was conspicuously 
changed from talent, learning, office, or creden- 
tials, to the working of the Holy Ghost. Their 
power ceased to be a question of natural ability, 
and became one of Divine gift. The measure of 
the former might be greater or less, without ma- 
terially affecting the fruit of their work; but this 
would exactly correspond with the degree of the 
latter. 

Andrew had heard the Baptist preach, had seen 
how his words ploughed up the rude feelings of 
the soldier, and at the same time commanded the 
subtle conscience of the scribe. He had heard 
the Lord Himself when every word struck the ear 
as a wonder. Probably he had always thought it 
impossible that such sword-edged sentences should 
ever come from his lips, or from those of “his 
own brother Simon.” He might conceive that he 
should be able to repeat the substance of the les- 
sons which the Lord had taught them, and that, 
when he stood before Councillors and Magis- 
trates, he should be enabled to assign a reason for 
his hope. Perhaps he would think it possible 
that, when filled with that new Comforter, who 
had been so often promised to them, he could ad- 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 81 


dress a multitude with feeling. But, as to words 
like fire, melting and burning the spirits of men— 
words like hammers, breaking in pieces the hearts 
of stone—words that should rush on the congrega- 
tion with a force too overwhelming to be called 
eloquence—should win a conquest too rapid and 
too complete to be called persuasion—should make 
the speaker not only a prodigy, but a power—his 
hearers not only an orator’s audienec, but a Mas- 
ter’s disciples—as to such words as these, how 
was it possible that they should ever proceed from 
him or Simon? So might he naturally reason; 
but when he finds himself fluently telling a man 
_ from the shores of Cyrene the whole story of the 
birth, and death, and resurrection, and ascension, 
in a tongue which he had never heard before; 
when the African assures him that it was the 
tongue of his native town, then, had you asked 
him, “Is it now possible that you or Simon should 
speak with a voice mightier than the voice of a 
Prophet, or that the least of your company should 
be greater than the thunder-tongued Baptist?” 
he had answered, “ With God nothing is impossi- 
ble.” 

“And it sat upon each of them. And they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to 
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them 
utterance.” ‘The tongue of fire rested upon each 
disciple, and all spoke with a superhuman utter- 


82 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ance. Not the twelve only, the Lord’s chosen 
Apostles; not the Seventy only, His commissioned 
Evangelists; but also the ordinary believers, and 
even the women. ‘The baptism of the Spirit fell 
upon all, and spiritual gifts were imparted to 
all—not equally; for the expression, “As the 
Spirit gave them utterance,” seems to indicate a 
diversity of gifts, which accords with other passages 
in the New Testament. It is not probable that 
each one could speak every language, for St. Paul 
says of himself that he “spake with tongues more 
than they all,” clearly implying a limit in that gift, 
and a different limit in different persons. And 
it is certain that all had not the gift of “ prophesy- 
ing” suited to address such congregations as that 
soon about to meet, or even publicly to teach in 
ordinary assemblies. As in His later operations, 
so now, the blessed Spirit would doubtless show 
“diversities of operations,” giving to “one the 
word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, 
to another prophecy,” etc. But the cloven tongues 
sat upon each of them, and, by the joint effect of 
spiritual life imparted and of spiritual gifts be- 
stowed, all were instantly set upon spiritual ser- 
vices; all led to become active witnesses for Christ 
and for His cross. 

The fire did not fall on the Twelve to be by 
them communicated to the Seventy, and by them 
again to the ordinary flock. It came as directly 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 83 


on the head of the disciple whose name we never 
heard, as on that of the beloved and honored 
John. It did not confound John the Apostle in 
the promiscuous mass, or place his office at the 
disposal of the multitude; but confirmed it, and 
fitted him by new gifts to adorn and make full 
proof of his ministry. But it did not, on the 
other hand, leave the ordinary believers as mere 
spectators, to see the spiritual work of the Lord 
committed wholly to the selected ministry; their 
part being passively to receive spiritual influences 
and illumination, from those who had direct ac- 
cess to Him with whom is the supply of the Spirit. 

This original blessing meets beforehand the 
error, which was likely to spring up, from looking 
on the true religion in the light in which all false 
ones are ever regarded—as a mystery to be con- 
fined to an initiated few, on whose offices the 
multitude must depend for acceptance with the 
invisible power. Here was a religion that did 
single out and lift up some above their fellows, 
investing them with a high and solemn ministry; 
but from their ministry it swept away all seeming 
of priesthood. 

The usual idea of priesthood is that of a power 
standing between man and God, through which 
alone we may draw near, and find mercy at His 
hands. But so far from any such characteristic 
belonging to the ministry of the Gospel, it is dis- 


84 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


tinguished as being an office, the special labor 
of which is to point each man direct to God, and 
to assure him that between him and the throne of 
grace there is no power, visible or invisible, and 
no mediator but that One to whom alike Apostle, 
Evangelist, and the humblest penitent must look. 
True, all were not Apostles, all were not Hyan- 
gelists, all were not Prophets; but, in the only 
sense in which any were Priests, all were Priests. 
The one altar of the cross, the one sacrifice of the 
Lamb, the one High Priest within the veil, were 
alone to be named in any light of peacemaking 
with God. ‘To all, the privilege of offering up 
the sacrifices of praise and of prayer, of living 
bodies and of worldly goods, was equally open. 
No man was made a depository or storehouse 
wherein spiritual favors should be laid up for the 
use of those who might purchase or implore them 
at his hands. He was most honored who could 
most successfully turn the trust of men away from 
all other advocates, and fix it upon the Son of God 
alone. | 

“ They all began to speak.” This shows that 
the testimony of Christ was not borne by the 
Ministry alone; that this chief work of the Church 
was not confined to official hands. The multitude 
of believers were not mere adherents, but living, 
speaking, burning agents in the great movement 
for the universal diffusion of God’s message. 


MIRACULOUS EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 85 


Many feel as if religion, on the part of the Minis- 
try, was to be a matter of bold and public testi- 
mony; but on that of ordinary Christians, a 
heart-secret between themselves and God. Let 
such sit down in sight of that first Christian scene; 
let them behold every countenance lighted up with 
the common joy, and hear every tongue speak 
under the common impulse, and then ask Bar- 
timeus, or Mary, if the private disciple has not 
just as much cause to be a witness that Jesus lives, 
and that Jesus saves, as either James or John? 
Let them ask if it is like their religion that one 
lonely Minister shall, on the Lord’s Day, bear wit- 
ness before a thousand Christians, who decorously 
hear his testimony as worthy of acceptance by all, 
and then go away, and never repeat the strain in 
any human ear? 

Looking on the universal movement of that 
Pentecostal day, who could think that the new 
religion was ever to come down to this? that 
speaking of its joys, its hopes, its pardon, its mercy 
for the wide world, was to be considered a profes- 
sional work, for set solemnities alone, and not to 
be a daily joy and heart’s-ease to ever-growing 
multitudes of happy, simple men? Cheerless is 
the work of that Christian Minister, who, at set 
times, raises his testimony in the ears of a people, 
all of whom make a practice of hiding it in their 
hearts. Blessed in his office is he who knows that, 


86 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


while he in his own sphere proclaims the glad 
tidings, hundreds around him are ready, each one 
in his sphere, to make them their boast and their 
song. Spiritual office and spiritual gifts vary 
greatly in degree, honor, and authority, and he 
who has the less ought to reverence him who has 
the greater, remembering who it is that dispenses 
them; but the greater should never attempt to ex- 
tinguish the less, and to reduce the exercise of 
spiritual gifts within the limits of the public and 
ordained Ministry. To do so is to depart from 
primitive Christianity, 


CHAPTER VI. 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 


I.—The Gift of Prophecy—Preaching. 


In immediate connection with the gift of 
tongues, was a gift less startling as a phenom- 
enon, but more influential as an instrument for 
the recovery of mankind. Peter was soon called 
upon publicly to deliver the Lord’s great message. 
Then, undoubtedly, he spoke, not in any foreign 
tongue, but in his native dialect. He had often 
spoken before, yet nothing remarkable is recorded 
of his preaching, or its effects. He is now the 
same man, with the same natural intellect, and 
the same natural powers of speech; and yet a new 
utterance is given to him, the effects of which are 
instantly apparent. 

Never was such an audience assembled as that 
before which this poor fisherman appeared: Jews, 
with all the prejudices of their race—inhabitants 
of Jerusalem, with the recollection of the part 
they had recently taken in the crucifixion of 
Jesus of Nazareth, met in the city of their solem- 
nities, jealous for the honor of their temple and 
law: men of different nations, rapidly and earnestly 

87 


88 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


speaking in their different tongues; one in Hebrew, 
mocking and saying, “These men are full of new 
wine;’’ another inquiring in Latin; another dis- 
puting in Greek; another wondering in Arabic; 
and an endless Babel besides expressing every 
variety of surprise, doubt, and curiosity. Amid 
such a scene the fisherman stands up; his voice 
strikes across the hum which prevails all down 
the street. He has no tongue of silver; for they 
say, “He is an unlearned and ignorant man.” 
The rudeness of his Galilean speech still remains 
with him; yet, though “unlearned and ignorant ” 
in their sense—as to polite learning—in a higher 
sense he was a scribe well instructed. As respected 
the word of God, he had been for three years 
under the constant tuition of the Prophet of 
Nazareth, hearing from His lips instruction in the 
law, in the Prophets, and in all the “deep things 
of God.” On whatever other points, therefore, 
the learned of Jerusalem might have found Peter 
at fault, in the sacred writings he was more 
thoroughly furnished than they; for though Christ 
took His Apostles from among the poor, He left 
us no example for those who have not well learned 
the Bible, to attempt to teach it. 

Yet Peter had no tongue of silver, no tongue 
of honey, no soothing, flattering speech, to allay 
the prejudices, and to captivate the passions of 
the multitude. Nor had he a tongue of thunder; 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 89 


no outbursts of native eloquence distinguished his 
discourse. Indeed, some, if they had heard that 
discourse from ordinary lips, would not have hesi- 
tated to pronounce it dry—some of a class, too 
numerous, who do not like preachers who put them 
to the trouble of thinking, but enjoy only those 
who regale their fancy, or move their feelings, 
without requiring any labor of thought. Peter’s 
sermon is no more than quoting passages from the 
Word of God, and reasoning upon them; yet, as 
in this strain he proceeds, the tongue of fire by 
degrees burns its way to the feelings of the multi- 
tude. The murmur gradually subsides; the mob 
becomes a congregation; the voice of the fisher- 
man sweeps from end to end of that multitude, 
unbroken by a single sound; and, as the words 
rush on, they act like a stream of fire. Now, one 
coating of prejudice which covered the feelings is 
burned, and starts aside: now, another and an- 
other: now, the fire touches the inmost covering of 
prejudice, which lay close upon the heart, and it 
too starts aside. Now, it touches the quick, and 
burns the very soul of the man! Presently, you 
might think that in that throng there was but 
one mind, that of the preacher, which had multi- 
plied itself, had possessed itself of thousands of 
hearts, and thousands of frames, and was pouring 
its own thoughts through them all. At length, 
shame, and tears, and sobs overspread that whole 


90 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


assembly. Here, a head bows; there, starts a 
groan; yonder, rises a deep sigh; here, tears are 
falling; and some stern old Jew, who will neither 
bow nor weep, trembles with the effort to keep 
himself still. At length, from the depth of the 
crowd, the voice of the preacher is crossed by a 
cry, as if one was “mourning for his only son;” 
and it is answered by a cry, as if one was in “ bit- 
terness for his first-born.” At this cry the whole 
multitude is carried away, and, forgetful of every- 
thing but the overwhelming feeling of the mo- 
ment, they exclaim, “Men and brethren, what 
must we do?” 

No part of the proceedings of the day strikes us 
with a deeper or more lasting impression than the 
amazing change in Peter, which is here manifest. 
We are continually prone to consider the power 
of a Minister as a natural power, simply intel- 
lectual. Here was a man who, in all probability, 
had passed the period of life when eloquence is 
most forcible, without having distinguished him- 
self by any such power. He comes forward with 
a most unwelcome message, to address an un- 
favorable audience, himself unskilled in the arts 
of oratory; and yet, such is the power of utter- 
ance given to him, that he produces an effect, the 
like of which had never been known before in the 
history of mankind. Never has it been recorded in 
any other instance, that three thousand men were 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 91 


in an hour persuaded by one of their own nation, 
of obscure origin and uninfluential position, to 
forego the prejudices of their youth, the favor of 
their people, and the religion of their fathers. 
“T will be with thy mouth,” is more strikingly 
fulfilled here, in those extraordinary effects of the 
speaking of an ordinary man, than in any other 
form in which the power of God could be dis- 
played, through the instrumentality of a human 
tongue. There is no part of the whole series of 
events which has a more direct bearing upon the 
permanent work of the Christian Church. 

This is the first example of prophesying in the 
New-Testament sense; not the limited sense of 
foretelling, but the more comprehensive sense of 
delivering a message from God, under the impulse 
of the Spirit of God, and by His aid. In this the 
speaker has the double advantage of ascertained 
truth to declare—truth which his own understand- 
ing has received, which he can enforce by citing 
the Word of God—and of aid direct from the 
Spirit in uttering it. This gift is conspicuously 
placed by St. Paul above that of tongues: 
“Greater is he that prophesieth than he that 
speaketh with tongues.” The gift of tongues 
was “ for asign to them that believe not;”” and even 
to them only under certain circumstances, when 
they were addressed in a tongue which they un- 
derstood, and that by one of whom they had proof, 

8 


92 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


or what amounted to strong probability, that he 
had not learned it ina natural mode. For the 
union of these two requisites nothing was so 
favorable as the meeting of anumber of foreigners 
in one city, and hearing natives of the country 
speak all their different languages. A foreigner 
appearing ina city, and professing to speak its 
language by miracle, would lie under the suspicion 
of having learned it before he came; and persons 
speaking foreign tongues in the presence of their 
own unlearned countrymen, would seem to utter 
gibberish. ‘This Paul puts strongly to the Cor- 
inthians: “If the whole Church be come together 
into one place, and all speak with tongues, and 
there come in those that are unlearned, or un- 
believers, will they not say that ye are mad?” 

If a number of persons in Corinth had a gift in 
Hebrew, or in Latin, and their fellow-townsmen, 
who knew only Greek, came and heard a rush of 
unmeaning sounds, and were told that it was a 
miracle, it might be, but it was no miracle to 
them. If they saw an African peasant speaking 
fluently in Greek, then, indeed, they would be 
startled; and if once assured by any means that he 
had not learned it, they would recognize a miracle. 

But the effect of persons resident in a place 
using the gift of tongues could only be to satisfy 
the learned of a miracle. For the unlearned it 
would be simply bewildering. Suppose that, in 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 93 


the city of Oxford, the stonemasons, joiners, and 
shoemakers heard a few of their own number 
uttering something in Latin, they would only be 
impressed with a belief that they had gone mad, 
or were amusing themselves with gibberish. But 
did the learned men of the University find these 
groups discoursing on the doctrines of the Gospel 
in the ancient language of ancient Rome, which 
it had been the study and the labor of their 
lives to acquire perfectly, they would be over- 
whelmed with asense of the prodigy. All through 
the fourteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians, St. Paul admits that upon the learned 
the gift of tongues would make an impression; 
but that the unlearned, if believers, would be 
unedified, and, if unbelievers, would be led to 
mock. 

To the higher gift of prophecy he assigns two 
offices which that of tongues could never fulfil. 
One is the edifying of believers; and on this score 
he much urges the Corinthians to seek for that 
gift. The other is its effect upon the unlearned 
unbeliever. “If all prophesy, and there come in 
one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is 
convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are 
the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so fall- 
ing down on his face he will worship God, and re- 
port that God isin youofatruth.” Here is a man 
who knows no language but one, and who has no 


94. THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


faith in the Divine mission of the Christians; yet 
he enters an assembly where men are speaking in his 
own tongue: that tongue as to its words is familiar 
to him from his childhood; but its words now con- 
vey new ideas, and those ideas are accompanied 
by a strange power which pierces, lays open, and 
searches his heart. He seems as if God had found 
him out, and told another man all about him, his 
hidden sins, his bosom pollutions, and covered 
deeds which had been even forgotten, but which 
now are brought strangely to his view again. An 
unaccountable impression of God’s presence, of a 
message, a warning, a call from God, sinks down 
into his soul. He feels, as he never felt before, 
“God is in this place;” and, falling down upon 
his face, forgetful of appearances, and heedless of 
consequences, perilling his temporal peace, and 
exposing himself to every manner of remark, he 
worships in bitterness of penitence an offended, 
but a forgiving, God, and goes forth to tell those 
with whom he comes in contact, that the people 
whose words had searched his heart and made 
manifest its secrets must have God in the midst 
of them. This was the gift of prophecy, as that 
term is generally employed in the New Testament. 
It differs from prophecy in the ordinary sense in 
this, that the gift conveys no “ revelation,” either 
as to truth hitherto unrevealed, or as to future 
events. It differs from the gift of tongues in this, 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 95 


that the intellect and organs act according to 
natural laws, though under a supernatural influ- 
ence. It is that gift through which the whole 
of man’s nature works in co-operation with the 
Holy Spirit, the intellect illuminated with Divine 
light, the moral powers quickened by Divine feel- 
ing, and the physical organs speaking with Divine 
power. This is placed by the Apostle as the 
highest gift—the one wherein man stands closest 
in communion with God as His intelligent instru- 
ment for His most hallowed work—the work of 
calling prodigal sons back to His arms, and of 
training feeble children into strength and stead- 
fastness. This gift was that which had tho most 
direct utility, was capable of the most universal 
application, and was destined to be permanent; 
equally needful for the converting of sinners and 
the edifying of the Church; and therefore to be 
ever kept in view by the Church as a special sub- 
ject of prayer: for, let this cease, and Christi- 
anity dwindles into a natural agency for social 
improvement, blessed with superhuman doctrines, 
but destitute of a superhuman power. 

If the preaching of the Gospel is to exercise a 
great power over mankind, it must be either by 
enlisting extraordinary men, or by the endowing 
of ordinary men with extraordinary power. It 
does often happen that men whose eloquence 
would affect and sway, whatever might have been 


96 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


their theme, give all their talents to the Gospel; 
yet in such cases it always proves that the religious 
impression, produced upon mankind, is never 
regulated by the brilliancy or natural force of the 
eloquence, but always by the extent to which the 
preacher is imbued with that indescribable some- 
thing commonly called “unction,” or the opera- 
tion and power of the Spirit. On the other 
hand, it often happens that a man in whose 
natural gifts nothing extraordinary can be dis- 
covered, produces moral effects which, for depth 
at the moment, and for permanency, are totally 
disproportioned to his natural powers. In hearing 
such a man, and afterward discovering the effects 
of his preaching, people often ask, “ What is 
there in Mr. —— to account for such effects? We 
hear many who are abler, profounder, better theo- 
logians, more eloquent, more persuasive; yet this 
man’s preaching brings people to repentance and 
to God.”” They cannot discover the source of his 
power; and it is precisely this fact which inti- 
mates that it is spiritual. 


Il.—Christianity and Her Tongue of Fire. 


On the day of Pentecost Christianity faced the 
world, a new religion, and a poor one, without a 
history, without a priesthood, without a college, 
without a people, and without a patron. She had 
only her two sacraments and her tongue of fire. 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE QO” 


The latter was her sole instrument of aggression. 
All that was ancient and venerable rose up before 
her in solid opposition. No passions of the mob, 
no theories of the learned, no interests of the 
politic favored her; nor did she flatter or concili- 
ate any one of them. With her tongue of fire she 
assailed every existing system, and every evil 
habit; and by that tongue of fire she burned her 
way through innumerable forms of opposition. 
In asking what was her power, we can find no 
other answer than this one, “'The tongue of fire.”’ 

With regard to one of her deacons, Stephen, it 1s 
said that his enemies could not resist the wisdom 
and the power with which he spoke. It was not 
every disciple who had the gift of prophecy like 
him, to pour out in clear and copious utterance the 
testimony which could command the attention of 
national councils, and confound the sophisms of a 
college of disputers; but, each in his own sphere 
and style, the Christians of that happy day were 
distinguished among their fellow-men by a strange 
power of declaring the deep things of God. Many 
of them would go, like Andrew, who went first to 
‘his own brother Simon,” and tell their kinsmen 
of Jesus, and forgiveness, and the resurrection of 
the dead, and the world to come, in strains which, 
by some unaccountable power, fixed the attention 
and entered the heart. Others of them would go, 
as did the brothers to Nathanael, telling the neigh- 


98 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


bors and friends whom they met the great things 
of redemption, so that prejudices, even the strong- 
est, were often melted in the fire of their speech. 
True, always they did not succeed; but how 
marvellous their success was, notwithstanding! 
Had Christians of the present day, in addressing 
those whose conscience, creed, early impressions, all 
favor every word they say, but that strange influ- 
ence which bore down the most rooted aversion, 
how rapid and how glorious would be the spread 
of living religion in the land! 

_ This power of utterance is ordinarily referred to 
throughout the New Testament as at once the gift 
of God and the great weapon of the Church. We 
have already noticed how, when opposition first 
threatened them, they went in earnest prayer to 
God, and asked for power, that they might speak 
His word with boldness. So when any one of 
them, in critical circumstances, is enabled specially 
to declare and magnify the truth, we are told that 
he does so, “being filled with the Holy Ghost;” 
and Paul, who, though he was not present on the 
day of Pentecost, received the tongue of fire in 
a very remarkable degree, did not hold that gift 
as being constitutional, like natural talents and 
aptitude of speech. Among the subjects with re- 
gard to which he entreats the prayers of his Chris- 
tian brethren, he specially mentions “ utterance.” 
“ Praying always with all prayer and supplication in 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 99 


the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perse- 
verance and supplication for all saints; and for me, 
that utterance may be given unto me, that I may 
open my mouth boldly, to make known the mys- 
tery of the Gospel.” Again and again have we 
brought before us the fact that this utterance is 
the direct gift of God; nor are we without traces of 
the same fact in earlier times than those of Chris- 
tianity. In the cases of Mary and Elizabeth, we 
hear them,under the influence of the Divine Spir- 
it, uttering great and glorious things. In the 
cases of Jeremiah and Isaiah, we find the Lord 
making Himself their strength in regard to the 
message wherewith He charged them; and in the 
case of Moses, the gift of speech was especially 
promised to him, but his faith failed, and conse- 
quently another had to exercise that power which, 
had he believed, he himself would have fully 
possessed. 

In all the history of the primitive Christians, 
we find traces of the effect produced upon others 
by the testimony they bore, even when bearing it 
under the constraint of public persecution, and in 
the face of impending danger. Without a press, 
without a literature, without any of our modern 
means of influencing masses of men; cast solely on 
the one instrument of the tongue, and in that des- 
titute of the wisdom of the Greek, and of the skill 
of the scribe; seldom favored with the opportunity 


100 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


of repeatedly addressing numerous assemblies of 
the same individual; destitute of prestige, contemp- 
tible in numbers, rustic in manners, and thwarted 
by circumstances; strong only in the one peculiar 
_ attribute—the unseen fire which filled them; on 
they went, and on, turning the hearts of their ene- 
mies, and advancing the praise of the Lord. 
Religion has never, in any period, sustained it- 
self except by the instrumentality of the tongue 
of fire. Only where some men, more or less im- 
bued with this primitive power, have spoken the 
words of the Lord, not with “the words which 
man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth,”” have sinners been converted, and saints 
prompted to a saintlier life. In many periods of 
the history of the Church, as this gift has waned, 
every natural advantage has come to replace it:— 
more learning, more system, more calmness, more 
profoundness of reflection, everything, in fact, 
which, according to the ordinary rules of human 
thought, would insure to the Christian Church a 
greater command over the intellect of mankind, 
and give to her arguments in favor of a holy life 
a more potent efficacy. Yet it has ever proved 
that the gain of all this, when accompanied with 
an abatement of the “fire,” has left the Church 
less efficient; and her elaborate and weighty lessons 
have transformed few into saints, though her 
simple tongue of fire had continually reared up its 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 101 


monuments of wonder. This has been not less 
the case in modern times than in ancient. 

If the amazing revival which characterized the 
last century, be viewed merely as a natural prog- 
ress of mental influences, no analysis can find 
elements of power greater than have often existed 
in a corrupting and falling Church, or than are 
found at many periods when no blessed effects are 
produced. Men equally learned, eloquent, ortho- 
dox, instructive, may be found in many ages of 
Christianity. It is utterly impossible to assign a 
natural reason why Whitefield should have been the 
means of converting so many more sinners than 
other men. Without one trace of logic, philos- 
ophy, or anything worthy to be called systematic 
theology, his sermons, viewed intellectually, take 
a humble place among humble efforts. Turning 
again to his friend, Wesley, we find calmness, 
clearness, logic, theology, discussion, definition, 
point, appeal, but none of that prodigious and 
unaccountable power which the human intellect 
would naturally connect with movements so amaz- 
ing as those which took place under his word. 
Neither the logic of the one, nor the declamation 
of the other, furnishes us with the secret of his 
success. There is enough to account for men be- 
ing affected, excited, or convinced; but that does 
not account for their living holy lives ever after. 
Thousands of pulpit orators have swayed their 


102 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


audience, as a wind sways standing corn; but, in 
the result, those who were most affected differed 
nothing from their former selves. An effect of 
eloquence is sufficient to account for a vast amount 
of feeling at the moment; but to trace to this a 
moral power, by which a man, for his life long, 
overcomes his besetting sins, and adorns his name 
with Christian virtues, is to make sport of human 
nature. 

Why should these men have done what many 
equally learned and able, as divines and orators, 
never did? There must have been an element of 
power in them which criticism cannot discover. 
What was that power? It must be judged of by 
its sphere and its effects. Where did it act? and 
what did it produce? Every power has its own 
sphere. The strongest arm will never convince 
the understanding, the most forcible reasoning will 
never lift a weight, the brightest sunbeam will 
never pierce a plate of iron, nor the most powerful 
magnet move a pane of glass. The soul of man 
has separate regions, and that which merely con- 
vinces the intellect may leave the emotions un- 
touched, that which merely operates on the emo- 
tions may leave the understanding unsatisfied, and 
that which affects both may yet leave the moral 
powers uninspired. The crowning power of the 
messenger of God is power over the moral man; 
power which, whether it approaches the soul 


a. ee o> ee 


NEA; * 


MINISTERIAL EFFECTS OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE 103 


through the avenue of the intellect or of the affec- 
tion, does reach into the soul. The sphere of 
true Christian power is the heart—the moral man; 
and the result of its action is not to be surely dis- 
tinguished from that of mere eloquence by instan- 
taneous emotion, but by subsequent moral fruit. 
Power which cleanses the heart, and produces holy 
living, is the power of the Holy Ghost. It may be 
through the logic of Wesley, the declamation of 
Whitefield, or the simple common-sense of a plain 
servant woman or laboring man; but whenever 
this power is in action, it strikes deeper into 
human nature than any mere reasoning or pathos. 
Possibly it does not so soon bring a tear to the eye, 
or throw the judgment into a posture of acquies- 
cence; but it raises in the breast thoughts of God, 
eternity, sin, death, heaven, and hell; raises them, 
not as mere ideas, opinions, or articles of faith, 
but as the images and echoes of real things. 

We may find in many parts of the country, 
where much has been done to dispel darkness and 
diffuse true religion, that some of the first triumphs 
of grace were entirely due to the wonderful effects 
produced by the private and fireside talking of 
some humble Christians, who had themselves gone 
to the throne of grace, and waited there until they 
received the baptism of fire. In proportion as the 
power of this one instrument is overlooked, and 
other means are trusted in to supply its place, does 


104 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the true force of Christian agency decline; and it 
may without hesitation be said, that when men 
holding the Christian ministry, habitually and con- 
stantly manifest their distrust in the power of the 
Holy Ghost to give them utterance, they publicly 
abjure the true theory of Christian preaching. It 
is, according to the authority of its Author, deliver- 
ing a message from God—a message through man, 
it is true; but delivered, not with the excellency 
of man’s speech, not under the guidance of man’s 
natural wisdom; a message, the effect of which 
does not rest upon the artistic arrangement, 
choice, and order of words, but upon the extent 
to which its utterance is pervaded by the Holy 
Ghost. 


CHAPTER VII. 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD OF THE BAPTISM OF FIRE. 


I.—The Spirit fulfilling His Great Office. 


WHEN the promise of the Spirit was given, our 
Lord expressly intimated that His influence should 
not be confined to the Church, but that He should 
‘convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, 
and of judgment.” It was only thus that the 
Church could be extended beyond the number of 
the original disciples. Through the gifts bestowed 
upon Peter, the Spirit moved to the fulfilment of 
His great office in the hearts of worldly men. 
Both the miraculous and the ministerial gifts 
were made subservient to this end. The former 
was a wonder which raised curiosity and then 
amazement, which brought together a multitude 
first excited, finally awed. This, however, was 
allit did. Had the events of the day ended with 
the mere effect of the miracle, perhaps no Jew 
would have become a Christian, and certainly no 
sinner would have become a saint. The miracle. 
prepared an audience for the preacher; but it did 
not convert, and did not even instruct them: no 


one there knew the doctrine of the incarnation, 
105 


106 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


and its glorious concomitants, when Peter stood 
up to preach. All that the gift of tongues did 
was to produce an impression that these men were 
messengers of God. And even thisit did not pro- 
duce on all; for some mocked; probably people 
of the place, on whom the effect of the foreign 
tongues was lost. 

The entire advantage which Peter, as a preacher 
of Christianity, derived from the evidences of his 
religion, when he stood up on the day of Pente- 
cost, amounted to this: a large number of men 
were congregated in a state of much agitation, 
fresh from the impression of a prodigy before un- 
imagined, and with a strong suspicion that the 
preacher and his coadjutors were probably teachers 
from God. His advantage, as compared with a 
modern preacher, lay in the freshness of his feel- 
ing—in the opened state of the mind just after 
an indisputable marvel had forced a passage 
through all the prejudices. His disadvantage lay 
in the comparative ignorance of his hearers, in 
their disbelief of most of the points wherewith 
he wished to impress them, in the amount of re- 
ligious and national prejudice which fortified this 
disbelief, in the array of temporal interests which 
stood up against his appeal, in the discredit at- 
tached to his position, the obscurity of his person, 
and the rustic stamp of his speech. 

Putting his single advantage on the one side, 


ee Ne ee 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 107 


and his many disadvantages on the other, we nat- 
urally raise the question, Had he more eee 
from the miracle of tongues, than the modern 
preacher has from the Christian evidences gener- 
ally? It would be hard to exaggerate the value 
of that freshness of impression under which he 
found his hearers; yet, taking the whole course of 
human nature, the miracle, whether in the hand 
of Moses, the Prophets, or the Lord Himself— 
however mighty as an instrument of impression, 
as a credential of a Divine mission—never proved 
an instrument of moral regeneration to the 
people. 

From the Pentecostal and other miracles, from 
the whole array of the Christian evidences, the 
- modern preacher derives the advantage of an au- 
dience who believe that the doctrines he propounds 
are truly the Word of God. Within their con- 
science he has far more on his side than Peter had 
in the consciences of his auditory. Peter had the 
advantage of afresh and excited feeling; the mod- 
ern preacher has that of standing closer home upon 
the conscience. The latter often thinks how 
much might be effected had he only some such 
supernatural sign as arrested the multitude on the 
day of Pentecost: what would Peter have thought 
of his prospects, if, instead of such an audience as 
he had, one had been offered to him where all be- 
lieved that his Master was the Son of God, and 

9 


108 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


that there was “no other name given under 
heaven among men whereby we must be saved ’’? 

The effect of the miracle was a general impres- 
sion in favor of the Divine origin of the message. 
At this point the ministerial gift came into oper- 
ation. By an ability clearly to state and argue 
the truth, Peter was enabled to put the under- 
standing of his hearers into possession of the great 
revelation, that God had sent His Son to redeem 
them. By a sacred pathos, he was enabled to en- 
gage their sympathies in favor of each truth as 
he presented it. Clear and feeling utterance of 
the Gospel was his ministerial gift: understanding 
and impression were its effects. 

The united effect of the miraculous and minis- 
terial gift amounted to—favorable attention, un- 
derstanding of the truth, and inclination to em- 
brace it. But had no power beyond the testimony 
of the miracle, and the appeal of the sermon, touched 
the souls of the auditors, what single individual 
would have embraced truth so dangerous to his 
respectability and comfort, however convinced that 
it was of heavenly origin, and fraught with eter- 
nal advantages? ‘The inclination toward such a 
step raised by Peter’s warmth, would have been 
counteracted by many and potent inclinations of 
interest and of nature. Nothing is more common 
than for the human mind to turn its back upon 
a truth, firmly believed to be from God, deeply 


Ss Fe te rape ye 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 109 


felt to carry eternal hopes, but demanding the 
sacrifice of present gratifications, or of the friend- 
ship of the world. Mere conviction never carries 
a point of practical moral conduct. 

Deeper than the judgment, deeper than the feel- 
ings, hes the seat of human character, in that 
which is the mystery of all beings and all things, 
in what we call their “nature,” without know- 
ing where it lies, what it is, or how it wields its 
power. All we know is, that it does exert a power 
over external circumstances, bending them all in 
its own direction, or breaking its instruments 
against what it cannot bend. The nature of an 
acorn turns dews, airs, soils, and sunbeams to oak; 
and though circumstances may destroy its power, 
they cannot divert it while it survives. It defies 
man, beast, earth, and sky, to make it produce 
elm. Cultivation may affect its quality, and 
training its form; but whether it shall produce 
oak, ash, or elm, is a matter into which no force 
from without can enter, a matter not of circum- 
stances, but purely of nature. To turn nature 
belongs to the Power which originally fixed 
nature. 

In man feelings and intellect are related to Na- 
TURE, as in a plant tissues and juices: they derive 
their character from nature, and manifest its bent; 
but are not nature, though the means by which it 
acts on the external world, and is reacted upon by 


110 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


it. Nature does not decide the comparative ex- 
cellence of character in the different members of 
the same species: one oak may be much stronger 
than another, one rose much sweeter; one man 
much wiser, or more generous. The nature of 
man is essentially moral; and when intellect shoots 
up to eminence, it depends on the moral nature 
whether it is a blessing or a curse to the species, 
a joy or a trouble to the individual. According 
to the moral nature are the intellectual powers di- 
rected; and in man often wastefully, often hurt- 
fully—as to the great majority, in ways far below 
their capability. Just asin all other objects, so 
in man, his nature eludes our analysis, lies out of 
sight, and defies our direct influence. We ap- 
proach it through the intellect, or the feelings; 
but always with uncertainty, never knowing what 
unseen power may counterwork our most careful 
endeavors. 


II.—The Creator of Nature alone Able to Restore 
Fallen Man. 

It is the nature of fallen man to prefer present 
pleasure to the prospect of eternal happiness, the 
favor of the world to the favor of the Almighty; 
to love himself, and forget his Creator. In adults 
this nature is fortified by its own developments; 
by habits and connections which all tend in its own 
direction. When a man’s nature in boyhood pro- 


° 
aE Ts fn ne ee ee 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD EEA 


duced fruits of vice and trouble, when his advanc- 
ing years have steadily answered the impulse of 
the same nature, and his present associations are 
all based upon an alienation from heavenly ties; 
to bring him into immediate and permanent con- 
formity to a Divine ideal of life, requires the ul- 
timate Power of the universe, the Power which 
rules NATURE, and through nature circumstances. 
Set before all the wise and good of the world one 
man of thirty years, or upward, whose life has 
been wicked or worldly; and tell them by a word, 
a warning, or an appeal, infallibly to change him 
then and there to a pure men, or to a pious man; 
and they will each be ready to exclaim, “Am I 
God, that I should do this?” 

To say that man is the creature of circumstan- 
ces, 1s as much as to say that he is destitute of a 
nature; for, where a nature is, there is a power, a 
power of which circumstances are often the mere 
effect, but are never the masters. Let all the cir- 
cumstances under heaven conspire against the 
force of nature, as embodied in a seed of thorn, 
and they can never defeat it: all the gardeners, 
manures, heats, and waterings possible would fail 
to make it produce fir. Heap upon it every ad- 
vantage which art and creation can give, and it 
will steadily turn all to thorn, hopelessly incapable 
of rising above its nature. 

Change your treatment, and endeavor to debase 


112 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


it, and the same superiority of nature to circum- 
stances continues to manifest itself. You may 
starve it to death, you may stunt or blight it, but 
by no adversity will it degenerate to brier. ‘Thorn 
in spite of all allurements upward, thorn in 
spite of repulses downward; as it can never rise 
above, soit can never sink below its nature. Cir- 
cumstances are the creatures of natures, not natures 
of circumstances. 

Human nature is said by many to be good; if 
so, where have social evils come from? For hu- 
man nature is the only moral nature in that cor- 
rupting thing called “ society.”’ Every evil example 
set before the child of to-day isthe fruit of human 
nature. It has been planted on every possible 
field—among the snows that never melt; in tem- 
perate regions and under the line; in crowded cit- 
ies, in lonely forests; in ancient seats of civiliza- 
tion, in new colonies; and in all those fields it 
has, without once failing, brought forth a crop of 
sins and troubles. ‘This is absolute and inexpunge- 
able proof that human nature, in the aggregate, 
is a seed which produces sins and troubles. 

But a proof lies nearer the breast of each man. 
When you meant to do wrong, and had made up 
your mind upon it, did any instinct within you 
tell you that you were unable, and must seek 
supernatural help to carry out your intention? 
Never. You felt that to go forward was not only 


1 sgn AO incite 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 121033 


easy, but almost irresistible; was, in fact, yielding 
to nature. 

When you had made up your mind to overcome 
wrong inclinations, and to do right, and only - 
right, did not an instinct as unfailing as that 
whereby an infant searches for the breast of a 
mother, teach you to seek help, inward help, help 
against yourself? A decision to do wrong finds 
you strong in your own strength; a decision to 
conquer wrong, and do right, sends you to your 
knees, or makes you cry, “God help me!” If 
that be so, you need consult no man’s books as to 
what side your nature is inclined to. 

Man is the only being coming within our knowl- 
edge who has a nature that is plainly unnatural. 
This language is not paradoxical for the sake of 
paradox, but for the sake of strictly describing a 
mournful fact. Is a nature natural which can be 
changed without destroying the identity? That 
of man can be changed, and not only leave his 
identity perfect, but restore the course of a higher, 
and evidently an older, nature than the one which 
had previously reigned. Is a nature natural 
which urges toward courses which blight and ruin? 
Human nature, when least affected by culture, in 
the loneliest and loveliest islands of unfrequented 
seas, urges to courses of headlong ruin and destruc- 
tion. In the highest seats of civilization, it urges 
men to neglect the God of all, though they believe 


114 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


that to Him they are indebted for being, reason, 
and joy, and on Him are dependent for their con- 
tinuance; urges them to neglect objects which 
they believe to be truly noble and of eternal util- 
ity, for pleasures which they cannot help despis- 
ing, and for gains which they know are neither 
honorable nor lasting. In proof of this, more 
than enough is said by the simple words, London, 
Paris, Rome. Yet while their nature is thus over- 
riding their true dignity, true happiness, and 
true interest, a voice within, as if of a friend who 
has survived from better days, is ever protesting 
against this monstrous condition of things, and 
averring that this nature is not nature. 

There is not a beast of the field but may trust 
his nature and follow it, certain that it will lead 
him to the best of which he is capable. But as 
for us, our only invincible enemy is our nature: 
were it sound, we could hold circumstances as 
lightly as Samson’s withs; but it is evermore he- 
traying us. Often when we honestly meant to be 
good and noble, our miserable nature, at the first 
favorable juncture of circumstances, betrayed us 
again, and we found ourselves falling by our own 
hands, and bitterly felt that we were our own ene- 
mies. Heal us at the heart, and then let the 
world come on! we are ready for the conflict. 
Make us sound within, and we shall stand in the 
evil day. We can defy circumstances, and resist 


RS ea i nN a a tas Noel hes 49 0 tes 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 115 


the devil, if only our own breast become not a 
hold of traitors; if inclinations, silent, subtle, 
and strong as nature, do not arise to beguile us 
into captivity to evil. 

You tell us to withstand these inclinations, not 
to yield to our impulses, but to subject them to 
reason; that is, not to follow nature, which is in- 
ward and impulsive, but to be guided by external 
indexes which Observation notes, Reason interprets, 
and Will may apply to the control of nature. 
That, in fact, is saying, “Do not live by your 
nature, but resist your nature.” What a world of 
appalling truth comes in with that one admoni- 
tion! My nature not a nature to live by! Self- 
regard putting me on the watch against nature! 
A nature, and that the highest nature in this ter- 
restrial system, self-injurious! This is not Thy 
handiwork, O Eternal Parent, Author of order, 
beauty, and love; Creator of natures, each of 
which is in unison with itself, and in harmony 
with all Thy other creatures! What has hap- 
pened since man first left Thy hand? 


Ill.—Three Thousand Sinners Converted into Saints. 


It was strange to see three thousand men, after 
one hearing of a new and untried religion, accept 
it as their faith, and publicly enroll themselves as 
its disciples. It was especially strange, since the 
men at whose hands they, with docility, took the 


116 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


sacramental pledge of their conversion, were men 
without repute, whom they had themselves pre- 
viously despised. But it is not till after some 
weeks have elapsed that the highest wonder of this 
‘phenomenon breaks upon us. 

Human nature is liable to unaccountable illu- 
sions, and multitudes to ungovernable impulses. 
It may be that in a week or two we shall find those 
thousands of a thousand different views, as to what 
they had heard from Peter on the day of Pente- 
cost, and as to the pardon and grace which he had 
professed to declare to them. But, as day by day 
we watch that throng, moral marvels come con- 
tinually into view. What was so rare in human 
nature is now ordinary, a holy man. Persons who 
were as commonplace in character as can be con- 
ceived, now live before us, saints. The vile be- 
come noble, the churl self-denying, the bitter 
gentle, the sensual wonderfully pure. A com- 
munity drawn from Jews of the ordinary standard, 
from persons of every variety of character and of 
sinfulness, is a community so pure, so far beyond 
what human eyes ever have seen before, that it 
seems as a commencement of heaven upon earth. 
Raised suddenly into saintship, they steadily main- 
tain their moral elevation; first astonishing and 
captivating those who look on, and then with- 
standing all the opposition which prejudice and 
power can bring to crush them. 


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Day after day, month after month, year after 
year, this new and glorious life goes on. These 
men, lifted up from the ordinary level of sinners, 
continue “steadfast in the Apostles’ fellowship, 
and in breaking of bread and prayers,” “ filled with 
the Holy Ghost,” rich in faith, overflowing with 
inward consolation; not seeing their glorified Re- 
deemer with the eye, but more than seeing with 
the heart—feeling, embracing Him, they “ rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Their 
close prospect is immortality, their citizenship is 
in heaven, their wealth lies where change can 
never reduce it, nor moth corrupt, nor thief steal. 
Happy upon earth, and inheritors of heaven, it is 
naught to them that all mankind frown upon 
them; they know that they “are of God, and the 
whole world lieth in wickedness.”” Their sainth- 
ness spreads its fame to the ends of the earth—a 
fame that has never died until our day; and even 
upon our homes and our hearts are now descend- 
ing the mild and holy influences of the first com- 
munity called into existence by the Tongue of 
iste. 

Three thousand men permanently raised from 
death in sin to a life of holiness! Three thousand 
sinners converted into saints! Three thousand. 
new-made saints enabled day by day to walk im 
the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy 
Ghost! Three thousand of our brethren, weak, 


118 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


sinful by nature, open to the temptings of Satan 
even as we are, maintaining a life in the body 
which almost surpasses belief, so is it marked with 
goodness and with purity! 

This, of all the spectacles of Pentecost, is the one 
that speaks in deepest tones to the heart. On 
those three thousand we gaze; and our souls break 
out with adoration. Glory, honor, salvation!— 
for now the word “salvation” may be boldly ut- 
tered by human lips—salvation is come, is come 
to the race of Adam! Here we see it, not in 
word, not in promise, but in practical demon- 
stration in human beings redeemed; in our nature 
recovered from sin, and that not in a solitary 
convert, not in one ardent youth, or in one ex- 
hausted worldling, but in hundreds and thousands 
of men with ordinary hearts, and wants, and em- 
ployments, to whom human life has become a 
fellowship with God, and a straight road to eter- 
nal joy. 


IV.—Renewing of Bad Hearts in the Image of God. 


We have already said that we may speak of a 
physical miracle and of a mental niracle; and to 
this we may add a moral miracle. Mind, we have 
said, is greater than matter, and therefore a work 
wrought in mind is greater than one wrought in 
matter; it bespeaks not merely a power, but a 
spirit. Just as intellect sways matter, so does that 


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EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 119 


- for which it is hard to find a name—the moral na- 
ture, the self and substance of a man, the HEART 
—sway the intellect. We shall use the word 
“heart,” not to signify the emotional nature, rep- 
resented in Scripture by the “bowels,” but the 
moral nature; that is, so far as man is concerned, 
NATURE. ‘The heart commands the man. Give 
me a heart, and you give me a man; it carries 
both a mind and a body with it. Heart is the 
greatest thing below the sky; the nearest to the 
government above, that which sways intellect, and 
sways all things human. A work, then, wrought 
upon heart, is the highest order of operation to 
which human nature can afford a sphere. Chris- 
tianity professes to be a system for that which 
has never been otherwise professed—the renewing 
of bad hearts in the image of the God of heaven. 
To this all its powers are directed; and until this 
is done, Christianity is but a theory. All pre- 
vious to this is but as a verbal explanation of 
principles by a physical philosopher, lacking his 
ocular demonstration. The problem of our na- 
ture is how to make the bad good; that is, how to 
change nature, which, by natural power, 1s abso- 
lutely impossible. 

In the physical miracle, we see the God of na- 
ture accrediting revelation; in the mental mir- 
acle, we see the God of mind accrediting revela- 
tion. In both these nature is counter-worked, 


120 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


and a power above nature manifested. It isa 
grand and memorable thing to see the sea dried 
up, or to see the human mind illuminated with 
the lights of prophecy or the gift of tongues; but 
the highest manifestation of a power above nature, 
of a power acting against and contrary to nature, 
is when the bad suddenly becomes good; the im- 
pure, pure; when a clean thing is brought out of 
an unclean; when the earthly becomes heayenly; 
the sensual, spiritual; the devilish, like God; 
when the Ethiopian changes his skin and the leop- 
ard his spots; when instead of the thorn comes up 
the fir-tree, and instead of the brier comes up the 
myrtle-tree. Here is the Ruler, not of the physi- 
cal universe, overruling physical nature, or of the 
mental universe, overruling mental nature, but 
the Ruler of the moral universe, overruling moral 
nature, in attestation of the Gospel of His own 
grace. 

This, though not in the technical language of 
theology a miracle, isso in common sense. Is it 
nature? Is it reducible to natural law? True, it 
is what is to be ordinarily expected in Christian- 
ity; but expected as what? as a fruit of natural 
agency? or of supernatural power accompanying 
that agency, and attesting it as from God? Has 
any system of religion ever embodied such a con- 
ception as an evidence that God was in it, and 
working through it, which would admit of con- 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 121 


stant application, and, at the same time, would 
strike deeper into the human soul than any other 
imaginable demonstration? ‘This is the singular 
glory of the Gospel. The recovery of nature from 
her fearful fall, the creating anew of man in the 
image of God, the presenting the fir instead of the 
thorn, the myrtle instead of the brier, is the 
“EVERLASTING SIGN, WHICH SHALL NOT BE CUT 
OFF.”’ 

Other modes whereby the Lord attests and seals 
His messengers, whereby His operation accredits 
His word, have had their occasional and their 
glorious field; but this sign is equally adapted to 
all time, claims as its sphere all humanity, and ad- 
dresses not the judgment merely, but the con- 
science of man, proclaiming to him the presence in 
the earth of a Power that heals human nature, and 
restores the like of himself to the image of God. 

Each sinner transformed into a saint is a new 
token of a redeeming power among men. That 
token declares to observers, not that there is a 
King in heaven, not that there is a “ Father of 
lights,” but that there isa Saviour. And this is 
the testimony which the world especially needs. 
There are few things in religion which men doubt 
more than whether it is possible for them, as in- 
dividuals, to escape from their sins. No decla- 
ration of that possibility goes so far to convince 
them, as seeing those whom they have known as 


122 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


weak as themselves, as addicted to evil as them- 
selves, suddenly changed, and enabled all their life 
long to walk “as seeing Him who is invisible.” 
This at once says to them, “ There is One who has 
power on earth to save from sin;” and when they 
know that their neighbor ascribes all to the cross 
of Christ, they feel that in that cross must lie an 
efficacy by which, if ever they are to find salvation, 
that salvation must come. 

The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of 
power in the highest sphere—moral nature; with 
the highest prerogative—to change nature; and 
operating to the highest result—not to create 
originally, which is great; but to create anew, 
which is greater: for, when nature has once be- 
come evil, how infinite the glory of the act where- 
by again it takes its place in the eye of the uni- 
verse, “very good!” The creation of saints out 
of sinners is the demonstration whereby the di- 
vinity of the Gospel is most shortly and most 
convincingly displayed. Of all the Christian evi- 
dences, it alone proves that our religion does save 
from sin. 


V.—The case of the Converts of Pentecost. 


Again we look back to those three thousand, and 
in the sight we glory. Our nature is not hope- 
lessly lost. Redemption is wrought out. Hu- 
munity may be sanctified. Communities of men 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 123 


may be reared who shall dwell in peace and love, 
and earth may become a mirror of heaven. Never, 
below the skies—never, until the tragic history of 
Adam’s sons is ended, can we escape the death 
which sin has brought upon us, and its correlative 
woes. But sin itself has found a conqueror; not 
sin in the abstract, not sin in some philosophical 
impersonation, not sin in the great prince of the 
powers of darkness; but sin in human hearts, sin 
in my nature, sin girt round with flesh of my 
flesh, and bone of my bone, flowing in veins like 
mine, and appealed to by temptations of the mind, 
and of the body, just such as my own. Sin, in 
living man, has been conquered, its Conqueror 
reigns, His redeeming power is nigh; and in those 
converts at Jerusalem I see a pledge of my own 
deliverance, and can shout, “I, too, shall be made 
free from the law of sin and death.” 

We see a pledge of the deliverance, not only of 
individuals, but of multitudes; not only of fami- 
lies, but of thousands and tens of thousands. It 
has been too much the fashion for Christians to 
look upon pure and elevated religion as applicable 
only to a few. Ata time when Christianity and 
holiness became different things, and true relig- 
ion was looked upon as something not for life, but 
for a condition secluded from life, amounting, for 
practical purposes, to a burial before the time; a 


style of thinking crept in, which has never dis- 
10 


124 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


appeared to this day. In the Church of Rome we 
still find it maintained, that deep holiness finds 
its best place away from human life, in retreat and 
celibacy. Among Protestants this error is re- 
jected, yet practical religion is looked upon as 
something not to be expected to gain thousands 
at a time, and to renew communities by its sacred 
power, but rather to be a select blessing for a few, 
scattered here and there, and everywhere little 
discerned. 

Look back to Pentecost. See Christianity at 
her first step raising up her army by thousands. 
She seeks not the wilderness; she seeks not the 
few; she affects not little, dispersed, and hidden 
groups. In the sight cf Jerusalem, in the sight 
of the world, she starts as the religion of the mul- 
titude; the religion of fathers and mothers, of 
traders, land-owners, widows, persons of all classes 
and of all occupations. She takes in her hand, 
at the very first moment, an earnest of every na- 
tion, and kindred, and people, and tongue, of every 
grade and age, as if to expand forever the expec- 
tations of her disciples, and impress us with the 
joyful faith that her practical redemption was for 
the multitudes of men. 

In the case of the converts of Pentecost, we are 
struck first with the suddenness of their convic- 
tion, then with the sharpness of it, and then with 
the permanence of the result. 


eR an fn gan ty ee ee ee ee ee 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 125 


When the humble fisherman began to preach, 
many who had witnessed the miracle were mock- 
ing; none had become saints; perhaps not a man 
in the crowd believed in the mediation of Christ, 
or in any other of the great doctrines of the Gos- 
pel. They were adverse—not to say doggedly and 
systematically enemies. His words were strangely 
edged: a sword went through the very souls of 
these men—a sword which told to the couscious- 
ness, that He who wielded it was the Unseen and 
the Almighty. Asif the whole of life was recalled, 
as if eternity had pressed itself with all its weight 
into one moment, processes of thought that would 
have required long, long meditation, and yet 
longer description, flashed and reflashed across the 
soul; and the man found himself a sinner in the 
midst of his own sins, accused by the past, men- 
aced by the future, overwhelmed, confounded, 
discovered, and unable to wrestle against the 
thought, “ What must I do to be saved?” 

The sharpness of this conviction is equally amaz- 
ing with its suddenness. Why could not the men 
control themselves? Why not go to their homes and 
think? Why not take time to deliberate? Why 
not avoid exposure to the public eye? Why, but 
because, wounded to the very quick, they forgot 
all other considerations, and wanted to be healed? 
They saw, they felt themselves fallen into the 
hands of God; and, for the moment, the eye, the 


£26 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


voice, the opinion of man, was shut out from their 
thoughts. 

If a man really saw an angel, or one “risen from 
the dead,” we should expect that all consideration 
of by-standers would forsake him in the awe of the 
moment. And so, if in an instant a supernatural 
power opens the unseen world to the soul, with its 
one eternal Light, its heaven and its hell, although 
the view of these must be imperfect and confused, 
yet if it is a vtew, a sudden view, it must shoot 
fear, wonder, awe, through and through the soul, 
till man and man’s opinion are as little thought 
of, as fashion by a woman fallen into a steamer’s 
foaming wake. 

We find those who were affected by these sudden 
impressions going on and on, month after month, 
sustaining in the ordinary walks of life the pro- 
fession of saints, walking worthy, not only of 
themselves, not only of their teachers, but even of 
the Lord, leading such a life that “ He that sancti- 
fieth, and they which are sanctified, are all of one: 
for which cause He is not ashamed to call them 
brethren.” This steadfastness in purity and piety, 
“in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in 
breaking of bread, and in prayers,” in liberality 
such as no community had ever practised, in 
“gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, 
and having favor with all the people;”’ shows 
that the fountains of life had been sweetened, the 


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EFFECTS ON THE WORLD jure 


depths of the soul reached; that, in a word, na- 
ture had been touched, changed, renewed. 

The permanence of the change shows that it is 
one of nature; its suddenness, that it is effected by 
supernatural means. Indeed, natural means can 
never change a nature, though they may greatly 
modify its manifestations.’* When we want to pro- 
duce any moral impression on human nature that 
shall be permanent, ‘we trust to slow and length- 
ened training. ‘T’o turn a man from his ways, to 
turn him against his own interest, to lead him to 
place all he holds dear in continual jeopardy, 
purely for the sake of goodness here and happiness 
hereafter, is what, in any natural scheme, we must 
attempt by beginning early and by laboring long. 
But if we are to depend not on natural processes, 
but on the power of God, then time ceases to be a 
matter of account; the Infinite One declares His 
presence by accomplishing in a moment that upon 
which we had gladly spent a life. Whatever 
reasons may be advanced in favor of gradual 
awakenings, rather than sudden ones, this at least 
stands on the other side, that the sudden conver- 
sion conveys to all by-standers a much more strik- 
ing impression of a power above that of man. 
What is gradual may be readily ascribed, by the 
ignorant or the unbelieving, to the natural results 
of human processes. ‘They may say, “The won- 
der would be if, with so much teaching, so many 


128 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


homilies, directed to the one end of bringing man 
to consideration for his soul, he was not gradually 
brought to it.” But when, by some single, and 
perhaps simple, message, the work of conversion 
is done in an instant, it looks like the raising 
of the dead. As to by-standing sinners, it first 
stirs their wonder, then moves their conscience; 
and if they see such cases multiplied, the feeling 
falls upon them—‘“It is the mighty power of 
God!” 

Christianity was established by the creation of 
Christians. 


VI.—The Application of Christianity to Social Evils. 


In the words, “ Continued steadfast in the Apos- 


tles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of 
bread, and in prayers,” we see the effect of the re- 
generation of individuals on the character of a 
community. rom a number of good men at once 
arose a united and fraternal society. Statesmen 
and philanthropists, occupied with the idea of 
forming happy nations, frequently look to good 
institutions as the means of doing so; but find 
that when institutions are more than a certain dis- 
tance in advance of the people, instead of being 
a blessing, they become a snare and a confusion. 
The reason of this is obvious: good institutions 
to a certain extent presuppose a good people. 
Where the degree of goodness existing in the peo- 


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EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 129 


ple does not, in some measure, correspond with 
that presupposed in the institutions, the latter 
can never be sustained. As the organ, embodi- 
ment, and conservators of individual goodness, the 
value of good institutions is incalculable; and he 
is one of man’s greatest benefactors, who makes 
any improvement in the joinings and bearings of 
the social machine; but as a means of regener- 
ation, political institutions are impotent. Good 
institutions given to a depraved and unprincipled 
people, end in bringing that which is good into 
disrepute. In fact, it would be more correct to 
say, that institutions which are good for a people 
of good principles, are bad for a people destitute 
of principle. The only way to the effectual re- 
generation of society is the regeneration of indi- 
viduals: make the tree good, and the fruit will be 
good; make good men, and you will easily found 
and sustain good institutions. Here is the fault 
of statesmen—they forget the heart of the indi- 
vidual. 

On the other hand, have nct those who see and 
feel the importance of first seeking the regener- 
ation of individuals, too often insufficiently stud- 
ied the application of Christianity to social evils? 
When the result of Christian teaching long ad- 
dressed to a people has raised the tone of con- 
science, when a large number of persons embodying 
true Christianity in their own lives are diffused 


130 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


among all ranks, a foundation is laid for social 
advancement; but it does not follow that, by spon- 
taneous development, the principles implanted in 
the minds of the people make to themselves the 
most fitting and Christian embodiment. Fearful 
social evils may coexist with a state of society 
wherein many are holy, and all have a large 
amount of Christian light. The most disgusting 
slave-system, base usages fostering intemperance, 
alienation of class from class in feeling and inter- 
est, systematic frauds in commerce, neglect of 
workmen by masters, neglect of children by their 
own parents, whole classes living by sin, usages 
checking marriage and encouraging licentious- 
ness, human dwellings which make the idea of 
home odious and the existence of modesty impos- 
sible, are but specimens of the evils which may be 
left age after age, cursing a people among whom 
Christianity is the recognized standard of society. 
To be indifferent to these things is as unfaithful 
to Christian morals on the one hand, as hoping to 
remedy them without spreading practical holiness 
among individuals, is astray from truth on the 
other. 

I'he most dangerous perversion of the Gospel, 
viewed as affecting individuals, is, when it is 
looked upon as a salvation for the soul after it 
leaves the body, but no salvation from sin while 
here. ‘I'he most dangerous perversion of it, viewed 


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as affecting the community, is, when it is looked 
upon as a means of forming a holy community in the 
world to come, but never in this. Nothing short 
of the general renewal of society ought to satisfy 
any soldier of Christ; and all who aim at that tri- 
umph should draw much inspiration from the 
Kin@’s own words: “ All power is given unto Me 
in heaven and in earth.”” Much as Satan glo- 
ries in his power over an individual, how much 
greater must be his glorying over a nation embody- 
ing, in its laws and usages, disobedience to God, 
wrong to man, and contamination to morals? To 
destroy all national holds of evil, to root sin out 
of institutions, to hold up to view the Gospel ideal 
of a righteous nation, to confront all unwholesome 
public usages with mild, genial, and ardent ad- 
vocacy of what is purer, is one of the first duties 
of those whose position or mode of thought gives 
them an influence on general questions. In so 
doing they are at once glorifying the Redeemer— 
by displaying the benignity of His influence over 
human society,—and removing hindrances to in- 
dividual conversion, some of which act by direct 
incentive to vice, others by upholding a state of 
things, the acknowledged basis of which is— 
“Forget God.” 

Satan might be content to let Christianity turn 
over the subsoil, if he is in perpetuity to sow the 
surface with thorns and briers; but the Gospel is 


32 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


come to renew the face of the earth. Among the 
wheat, the tares, barely distinguishable from it, 
may be permitted to grow to the last: but the 
field is to be wheat, not tares; wheat, not briers; 
a fair, fenced, ploughed, sowed, and fruitful field, 
albeit weeds, resembling the crop, be interspersed. 


VII.—Prayer and Preaching. 


The same words, “The Apostles’ doctrine and 
fellowship, and breaking of bread, and prayers,” 
indicate the various exercises of religion, in which 
all Churches and individual Christians ought to 
“continue steadfast.” It was not a “preaching 
Church,” or a “praying Church,” the one in op- 
position to the other: they had both “ doctrine,” 
teaching, and “prayers.” The idea of separating 
these two, or of setting the one up above the other, 
is foreign to the religion of the New Testament. 
They are no Ministers sent of God, who have not 
the gift of being “apt to teach.” They may be 
good and useful men; but the proof that any one 
never was designed by the Head of all fora certain 
position, is, that He never qualified him for it. 
All the authorities in the universe cannot make 
him an ambassador for Christ, to whom Christ 
Himself has given no power to beseech men to be 
reconciled to God, no power to warn every man, 
and teach every man, that he may present every 
man perfect. ‘The pretence of a Christianity 


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without Ministers, served by a priesthood who can 
manipulate, read prayers that others wrote, organ- 
ize solemnities, and keep times and seasons, but 
cannot “rightly divide the word of truth”; can- 
not “preach the Gospel with demonstration of the 
Spirit, and with power’; cannot do anything but 
what the most senseless, or the most wicked, of 
men could do, if drilled to it; is one of those 
marvels of imposition before which we are at 
once abashed and indignant — indignant that, 
with the New Testament still living, men dare 
palm this upon us for Christianity; and abashed, 
that human nature is ready to accept such a 
travesty. 

On the other hand, the gift of teaching was not 
exercised to the exclusion, or even to the repression, 
of that of prayer. ‘The disciples did not come to- 
gether only when some one was prepared with a 
deep and weighty discourse on points of essential 
doctrine. Prayer was one of their habitual exer- 
cises; not merely hearkening to the solitary prayer 
of one gifted preacher in the great congregation 
before or after his sermon; but prayers in frequent 
and familiar fellowship, prayers prompted then 
and there, without book, and without study; 
prayers of private disciples who had no higher gift, 
but who could pour out their requests to God; 
prayers by men with provincial speech, and all the 
marks of being “unlearned and ignorant,” but also 


134 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


with clear signs that the Spirit was helping their 
infirmities, and teaching them what they should 
pray for as they ought. 

Suppose that Peter had some day stood up and 
said, “ Brethren, all things must be done in order. 
The'use of vulgar tones and uneducated language 
is unseemly. Henceforth none shall pray in our 
assemblies but those who can do so without ex- 
posing us to the ridicule of the respectable. In- 
deed, to secure propriety, we have prepared proper 
forms, and all our future praying shall be from 
these Litanies and Collects written here, the lan- 
guage of which is the most beautiful of human 
compositions, and may, indeed, be called fault- 
less.”’ | 

~ Would not this have altered the history of the 
primitive Church? Were not prayers, simple, 
unpremeditated, united; prayers of the well- 
taught Apostle; prayers of the accomplished 
scholar; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant; 
prayers of the new but zealous convert; prayers 
which importuned and wrestled with an instant 
and irrepressible urgency—were they not an essen- 
tial part of that religion which holy fire had kin- 
dled, and which daily supplications alone could 
fan? 

Surely no Church can be entitled to call herself 
a praying Church because, by a trained priesthood, 
she often reads old and admirable forms of prayer. 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD Pop 


Against such forms, suitably mingled with the 
public services of the Church, we mean to say no 
word; we use, admire, and enjoy them; but, with 
the Acts of the Apostles open, it is impossible to 
repress astonishment that any man should imagine 
that frequent and formal reading of the best forms 
ever written, unmixed even by one outburst of 
spontaneous supplication from minister or people, 
has any pretence to be looked on as the interceding 
grace, the gift of supplication bestowed upon the 
primitive Church. That in such modes holy and 
prayerful hearts may and do pour themselves out 
to God, we not only concede, but would maintain 
against all who questioned it. That such prayers 
are in many ways preferable to the one set prayer 
of one dry man—long, stiff, and meagre—where- 
with congregations are often visited, is too plain 
to need acknowledgment. 

But gifts of prayer are part of the work and 
prerogative of the Holy Ghost; are of the very 
essence of a Church; and to deliberately shut the 
door against them, or so to frame ecclesiastical ar- 
rangements that they are practically buried except 
when possessed by the Minister, the well-educated, 
or the influential, is a plain departure from apos- 
tolic Christianity. In no form is the tongue of 
fire more impressive, more calculated to convince 
men that a power above nature is working, than 
when poor men, who could no more preach than 


136 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


they could fly, and could not suitably frame a 
paragraph on any secular topic, lift up a reverent 
voice, amid a few fellow-Christians, and in strains 
of earnest trust, perhaps of glorious emotion, and 
even of sublime conception as to things Divine, 
plead in prayer with their Redeemer. The Pen- 
tecostal Christianity was not framed on the ideal 
ofan accomplished circle, but on that of a Church, 
a Church including learned and unlearned, the 
refined and the rustic, the honored Evangelist, 
Prophet, or Apostle, and the humble member with- 
out public gifts; but all rejoicing as members of 
one brotherhood, and each, in fitting time and 
mode, taking his share according to his gifts in 
the active work of mutual edification. A Church, 
to be apostolic, must have ministers powerful in 
preaching, and members mighty in prayer. 


VIII.—Fellowship and Brotherhood. 


They continued steadfast “in breaking of 
bread ;”” hence it is plain that it was not a purely 
spiritual system of worship, too spiritual to stoop 
to our Lord’s ordained symbols, or by the break- 
ing of bread to show forth His death. 

Besides breaking of bread, and doctrine, and 
prayers, “Fellowship” is distinctly named. It 
was then not a Church where the “teaching ” of 
the minister was taken for his fellowship with the 
people, and their “breaking of bread” for their 


3 


Ler 


“Eg. Seeded 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 137 


fellowship one with another; but where, in ad- 
dition to public teaching, sacraments, and pray- 
ers, was another beauty of primitive Christianity, 
“fellowship.” Fellowship is family life, forming a 
circle, smaller or larger, to the members of which, _ 
joys, sorrows, interests, and undertakings are of 
common concern and matter of common conver- 
sation. Between the life of man as an individual 
and as a member of a great community, lies a vast 
region of affections, which can be filled up only by 
family relations. In public, an individual does 
not indulge his affections: the greater the mul- 
titude, the more is the heart in privacy. The citi- 
zen who stands honorably with the public, and 
yet has no wife, child, or friend to partake of his 
life, is lonely: his place in the town council or the 
national legislature may be filled, and all the re- 
lations therein involved well sustained to him by 
others; but he lives without fellowship: if he does 
so from bereavement, men compassionate him; if 
from choice, they turn cold at the thought of 
him. 

It would have been strange, had a Church 
meant for man, in all his aspects, individual, do- 
mestic, national, left the space between the indi- 
vidual and the public unoccupied; so that Chris- 
tian life must have been divided into secret and 
solitary intercourse with God, and public solem- 
nities, wherein each was a stranger to each; no 


138 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


family life, no circles of interwoven hearts, no 
unbosoming of joys, sorrows, and cares, no com- 
munication “ one to another ” as to the soul’s health 
or progress. Had such a cardinal omission been 
traceable in Christianity, it might have raised 
many a question as to how the tenderest elements 
of our nature-—the social ones—had been disre- 
garded in forming a bond designed to unite all 
men in one loving brotherhood. 

But the spiritual life of the primitive Church 
is redolent of family feeling. You have not there 
the solemn and solitary man, who has things pass- 
ing between himself and his Creator, of which he 
never breathes a word, though he will take his 
place in public assemblies, where his own heart is 
as effectually concealed as if he were in a desert; 
who regards any approach toward fellowship of 
spirit as an inroad on privacy; any inquiry for 
his soul’s health as a stranger’s intermeddling; 
any opening of heart as weakness; who can live 
his religious life alone, and loves to do so, except 
when he comes into public; who wants no friends, 
fellow-helpers, or inner circle of companions; and, 
indeed, who loftily doubts whether sociality in 
religious life is a very good thing. That man who 
can find fellow-citizens among the children of 
God, but not family friends, may be a very good 
Christian, but not of the primitive stamp. 

What a glow of family heartiness runs through 


sedate 


‘ed ae 


> pian 


ea eae eet eS ee ee ee 


Ss. . .e 


: 
i 
; 


— 


ne oo “ * >. ao 
Se ee a 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 139 


the New Testament! Instead of stiff souls always 
either dressed for the public eye, or shut up in 
solitude; you have brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, 
who cling to each other by mutual attraction, and 
between whom the common talk often runs on 
their conversion, their conflicts, and their glorious 
foretaste of eternal joy. In writing to them the 
Apostles are manifestly addressing persons to whom 
one great event has occurred, the surpassing in- 
terest of which keeps it in continual remembrance. 
Once they were foolish, dark, wicked; carried 
away by evil passions, without God, and without 
hope. Buta wonderful change has passed upon 
them—a deliverance from the power of darkness, 
and a translation into the kingdom of God’s dear 
Son; a change as if from being aliens to being of 
the household of God; as from darkness to light, 
as from life to death. To this great salvation, 
accomplished for and in them, the allusions made 
by their apostolic teachers are so free, incidental, 
and frequent, as clearly to show that it was a 
theme of unreserved and joyful thanksgiving and 
wonder in their communications with one another. 
The dignity of the apostolic office does not prevent 
frank and touching allusions to personal conversion 
and to previous character, nor yet to present at- 
tainments; and, on the other hand, even the babe . 
in Christ is one whose happy experience is matter 


of open congratulation: “I write unto you, little 
11 


140 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


children, because your sins are forgiven you, for His 
name’s sake.”’ 

The incidental proofs of the spirit which ani- 
mated the first Christians, as to fellowship with 
one another, would be perfectly conclusive if they 
stood alone; but some important passages of the 
apostolic letters are plainly meant to preserve this 
spirit forever in the Church. “Let the word of 
Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teach- 
ing and admonishing one another in psalms and 
hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in 
your hearts to the Lord.” * Here is an injunction 
not to the Ministry, but to ordinary Christians, to 
be well acquainted with the word of God, with a 
view to the edification of one another, by teaching 
and admonition; but teaching and admonition 
which, so far from having the regularity of preach- 
ing, may even be, and ought frequently to be, in 
“psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” Such 
counsel could never be given, had a system been 
adopted wherein every word of teaching or admo- 
nition must fall from the lips of the Minister. 
Throughout the New Testament the system of the 
Church is assumed to be such as to call forth the 
gift of every member, no matter of what order it 
might be; and the active co-operation of each one 
is enjoined to promote the edification of all. 
“From whom [Christ] the whole body fitly joined 

* Col. iii. 16. 


, , 7 . tenet 
el a Lae Ee er oA 5 Oa aE ee fer 


2 th ee eek er! ne 


res 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 141 


together and compacted by that which every joint 
suppHeth, according to the effectual working in 
the measure of every part, maketh increase of the 
body unto the edifying of itself in love.” * Here 
“every joint” is to supply somewhat, “ every part” 
to perform its “effectual working;” and by this 
means the body is to increase, “ edifying itself”’ in 
love. No system can be made to accord with this 
passage, any more than with the general spirit of 
the New Testament, wherein the pulpit is the sole 
provision for instruction, admonition, and ex- 
hortation; the great bulk of the members of the 
Church being merely recipients, each living a 
stranger to the spiritual concerns of the others, 
and no “effectual working” of every joint and 
every part for mutual strengthening being looked 
for. It is not enough that arrangements to pro- 
mote mutual edification be permitted, at the dis- 
cretion of individual pastors or officers: means of 
grace, wherein fellow-Christians shall on set pur- 
pose have “fellowship” one with another, “speak 
often one to another, and exhort one another, con- 
fess their faults one to another,” and “ pray one for 
another,”’ shall “teach and admonish one another 
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,” are 
not dispensable appendages, but of the essence of 
a Church of Christ. 

Some make light of any “ teaching ” which could 

* Eph. iv. 16. 


142 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


be gained by the mutual exercise of the gifts of 
private members of the Church—not always either 
educated or wise—and think that only well-pre- 
pared addresses from the pulpit are instructive. 
The regular ministry of the word is undoubtedly 
the prime source of teaching, and on its vigor 
and clearness the life of all auxiliary agency will 
ever depend; but those who would reject the prac- 
tical and home teaching of free-hearted “ fellow- 
ship,” little consider that to persons of simple 
mind or slow heart—that is, to the majority of 
mankind—the great problems, ‘‘ What must I do 
to be saved? What is believing? Whereby shall 
I know that I shall inherit glory? AmIoram I 
not deceiving myself? How can I overcome this 
temptation, the sorest that ever beset a man? 
How can I grow in grace?” and such like, have 
often more light shed upon them by the plain 
statement of an individual as to how Divine Mercy 
solved them in his own case, than by any general 
explanation. In practical religion, as in all things 
practical, instruction is miserably incomplete, even 
though correct so far as it goes, if it does not 
bring before the student or inquirer actual exam- 
ples of the processes he hears described. A min- 
ister surrounded by bands of lively members, who 
with glad and single heart say as the Psalmist, 
“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will 
tell you what He hath done for my soul,” has at 


72 HA, > &-+ 


~~ 


st Nat eshte 0 


or. 
pe Peers” 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 143 


hand “living epistles’? which he may send any in- 
quirer to read; has practical demonstrations of 
his pulpit doctrines, by which he may at once con- 
vince and enlighten the doubter. One who seeks 
no such auxiliaries, who permits or encourages the 
frigid habit of walking each one with a sealed 
bosom, rests all his hopes of success on the words 
of his own lips, and that without Scriptural sanc- 
tion. 

Some defend a plain departure from Scriptural 
religion by openly questioning the utility of Chris- 
tian fellowship. One writer of note is so bold as 
to say that the spiritual experience of believers is 
“better never spoken about.’’ Though this sen- 
timent is completely alien to the spirit of both Old 
and New Testament piety, it is the natural fruit 
of the constitution of too many of our Protestant 
Churches. In them the social element of religion 
has been wofully overlooked. Provision is made 
for doctrine, for prayers, for breaking of bread; 
but none for fellowship. A Christian may be a 
member of a Church, and yet walk all his way 
alone, no one knowing or caring to know of his 
conflicts or his joys. If he is tempted, he may 
stand; if overcome, he may get restored; if happy, 
he may hide his peace among his secrets, and ask 
no one to rejoice with him; if he had lost his 
pearl and has found it again, he may be silent, for 
his neighbors are not wont to be called together to 


144 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


take share in another’s cares and joys. There is 
something fearfully chilling in a state of things 
of which this is too fair a description. Religion 
is a life to be lived in fellowship; a conflict to be 
sustained, not singly, but in bands; a redemption 
of which we are to impart the joy; a hope, an an- 
ticipation, of which the comforts are to be gladly 
told to those who “fear the Lord.” We once 
heard a contrite inquirer after spiritual comfort 
say, “It is ten years since I was received a mem- 
ber of such a Church, and during all that time 
no one has said a word to me about my soul.” 
And this is the case with tens of thousands who 
are members of Churches which provide only for 
public instruction and ordinances, not for the so- 
cial fellowship of saints. It is a mournful exam- 
ple of the effect of overlooking any one of the 
essential features of vital Christianity, and a fair 
comment on the ungenial notion that religious ex- 
perience had better never be spoken about. 

How would the Psalms be altered, could we re- 
construct them on the principle that all about the 
state of the soul, its joys, sorrows, temptations, 
wanderings, and deliverances, had better be kept 
in prudent reserve from the knowledge of our 
brethren! How would the apostolic letters lose in 
dignity, tenderness, and power, as well as in in- 
struction, could this frigid law of isolation once 
stiffen them! 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 145 


If we turn from Religion in her own person, as 
viewed in holy writ, to look at a reflection of her 
in one of the best mirrors, the ‘ Pilgrim’s Prog- 
ress,” how would Bunyan have handled pilgrims 
who would stiffly or prudently close up their 
bosom? A Christian, a Faithful, a Hopeful, who 
had nothing to say “one to another,” as they 
travelled on, respecting the beginning of God’s 
work in their heart, their escapes, solaces, temp- 
tations, and slips; a Christiana, a Mercy, a Great- 
Heart, an Honest, a Ready-to-Halt, who would 
interchange no experience; holy damsels and ge- 
nial Gaiuses who would have no questions to ask 
on such matters—would be a set of people whom 
Bunyan would not know, and whom, we suspect, 
he would castigate with good will. Indeed, he 
has given such some cutting stripes, as it 1s, in the 
person of Mr. Talkative, who, though fluent on 
doctrines and such points, was very reserved on 
experimental religion. Faithful, wishing to know 
how he was to bring him to a point, said to Chris- 
tian, ‘‘ What would you have me to do?” 

“Why, go to him, and enter into some serious 
_ discourse on the power of religion; and ask him 
plainly, when he has approved of it (for that he 
will), whether this thing be set up in his heart, 
house, or conversation? ”’ 

Faithful, having described how a work of grace 
“ discovers itself when it is in the heart of aman,” 


146 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


puts the plain question, “Do you experience this 
first part of the description of it?” 

Talkative at first began to blush, but, recovering 
himself, thus replied: “ You come now to experi- 
ence, to conscience, and God; and to apply to 
Him for justification of what isspoken. This kind 
of discourse I did not expect; nor am I disposed 
to give an answer to such questions: because I 
count not myself bound thereto, unless you take 
upon you to be a catechizer; and though you 
should do so, yet I may refuse to make you my 
judge.” How many professedly religious men, 
who think themselves very different people from 
Mr. Talkative, and in many respects are so, would, 
nevertheless, feel much as he did, if any Faithful 
came as abruptly close home, on the question of 
personal experience! 

Banish from the “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” the social 
element, the fellowship of hearts, the free recital 
of the Lord’s dealings with each pilgrim, and you 
would cool its interest down to a point which, 
doubtless, would be decorous in the eyes of some, 
but would never touch the many. 

“But is not what you call ‘fellowship,’ the 
meeting of lay members of the Church for prayer, 
praise, and recital of experience, liable to be 
abused?” Most certainly; and that in several ways. 
But is not preaching the Gospel liable to be abused, 
so as to be merely the means of displaying a man’s 


EFFECTS ON THE WORLD 147 


talent, or of diffusing error? And baptism, so as 
to be put instead of the “renewing of the iloly 
Ghost?” And the Lord’s Supper, so as to be put 
instead of holy living? When we want to learn 
what is Christian, we never ask what is incapable 
of being abused; for we should find no answer: 
but what accords with the word of God. 

And it does accord with the word of God, spirit 
and letter, that “they who fear the Lord” should 
“speak often one to another;”’ that the forgiven 
and happy sinner should have companions around 
him, before whom he may celebrate the mercies of 
his Redeemer; that the weak should not droop un- 
known, nor those whose love is waxing cold be left 
to grow cold unwarned. A Church wherein, from 
the Minister in the pulpit down, every manin his 
own order, “ according to the grace that is given to” 
him, is called to exercise his gift, and every mem- 
ber to lend his “effectual working’ toward the 
general life and strength; wherein hearts are open, 
and fellowship is free; can alone answer to the 
New Testament ideal of a Church. How much of 
the failure of the various Protestant Churches to 
maintain religion at a high point of vitality for 
any great length of time consecutively, or to dif- 
fuse it generally among the nations which have 
come under their spiritual care, is to be ascribed 
to their neglect of the social element of spiritual 
piety, we do not profess to determine. But let 


those Churches which, as to this point, have been 


148 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


taught to seek after primitive spirit and usage, | 
faithfully and immovably guard the inestimable 
treasure which has been committed to them. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


PERMANENT BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE CHURCH. 


I.—The Presence and Operation of the Spirit. 


AMONG the permanent benefits resulting from 
Pentecost, we cannot include the visible flame. 
Of it we never again find any mention in the 
course of the apostolical history; it appears to 
stand related to the Christian dispensation as the 
fires of Sinai did to the Mosaic—the solemn token 
of supernatural power upon its inaugural day. 

Neither are we warranted in looking upon the 
“oift of tongues’ as one of the permanent privi- 
leges of the Church. Only twice, throughout the 
Acts of the Apostles, do we find any record that it 
accompanied the first introduction of Christianity 
to a place; and both these instances are very pe- 
culiar. ‘The first was in the house of Cornelius, 
when Peter, preaching to his Italian auditory, felt 
some misgiving whether he might not by possi- 
bility be doing wrong, should he include them 
within the fold of the Church; but he saw a great 
change pass upon the men before him, and heard 
them begin to speak with other tongues, and thus 


saw that, as to themselves at the first, so to the Gen- 
149 


150 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


tiles the Lord had now given a Pentecost. The 
other case is that wherein the disciples at Ephesus, 
who had been instructed in the baptism of John, 
but had not so much as “ heard whether there was 
any Holy Ghost,” received the word at the hands 
of Paul, and began to speak with other tongues. 
‘These two cases excepted, we never read of this 
miraculous gift immediately attending conversions 
effected under the preaching of the apostles. It 
would not be just, from this circumstance, to infer 
that these were the only cases in which the gift 
was bestowed; but we may at least infer that 1t was 
not an invariabie accompaniment of the first ap- 
pearance of Christianity, even in the apostolic days. 

Considerable question, as to whether it was de- 
signed to be a permanent gift of the Church, is 
raised by St. Paul’s discourse on this particular 
gift in his letter to the Corinthians. It has been 
already remarked that he there shows it to be desti- 
tute of any power of edification for the Church, 
and therefore not to be a gift likely to continue, 
where all were convinced of the truth of Chris- 
tianity. “Tongues are for a sign, not to them 
that believe, but to them that believe not.” The 
only specific use assigned to the miracle is, that it 
is a sign to them who believe not. In any com- 
munity, then, in which the whole population had 
become believers, this sign ceased to be called for. 

It seems to be frequently taken for granted that 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 151 


the chief value of the gift of tongues was to enable 
the possessors of it to preach the Gospel to the 
natives of countries whose language they did not 
otherwise understand. But this is never set for- 
ward in the Acts of the Apostles as a reason for 
the gift. A solitary stranger, possessing the gift 
of tongues, and passing into a country, the lan- 
guage of which was to him otherwise unknown, 
would have a great advantage in that gift; but, 
as has been already noted, not the advantage of 
thereby impressing the people of the country with 
a sense of the miracle—for they would probably 
believe that he had been taught their tongue— 
but of ability at once to proceed with his work 
and mission. It is, however, to be remarked, 
that we never find this advantage quoted as one 
of the results of the gift. Except in the case 
wherein the gift of tongues was used as a sign 
to the disciples that the Gentiles were admit- 
ted into the dispensation and community of the 
Spirit, the gift was no sign “to those who be- 
lieve.” Its one use was as a‘ sign ’ to unbelievers, 
and even to them not in ordinary circumstances; 
for the prophecy, and not tongues, was the profit- 
able gift. Not adapted to edify the Church, nor to 
bring ignorant unbelievers to repentance, and fit- 
ted only to be a sign under exceptional circum- 
stances, this gift does not seem clearly designed to 
be either universal or perpetual. 


152 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


We are not called upon to say that it will never 
be restored to the Church; for that is never said 
in the word of God; nor should we ridicule or talk 
disrespectfully of the faith of any Christian who 
devoutly expects its restoration. All we say is, 
that we have not Scriptural ground to claim it as 
one of the permanent gifts of the Spirit; and we 
may add that, if it ever return to the Church, it 
will be, not a mystification, but a miracle, a real 
speaking with “other tongues,” not a speaking in 
some unheard-of, unknown tongue. 

Having premised thus far, we come to the seri- 
ous question, whether the Christian Church de- 
rives any advantage whatever from the dispensation 
of the Spirit, beyond that of looking back toa 
glorious period of miracle and power at her origin— 
a period which she may not regard as the dawn of 
along and brightening day, but as a wonderful 
time of mysteries and portents, which were to have 
no permanent place in the Church. It may seem 
strange thus plainly to put the question, whether 
Christianity really has any benefits permanently 
resulting from Pentecost; but it is necessary to do 
so, in order honestly to meet, not so much well- 
digested and formally expressed opinions, as a 
habit of feeling often prevailing among professed 
branches and members of the Christian Church. 

Nothing is more common than to find the whole 


system of Christianity, as an organization for re- | 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 153 


covering mankind from their sinful condition, 
spoken of, treated, and trusted in, as if it had 
been clearly ascertained that it was neither more 
nor less than a deposit of Divine doctrine cast upon 
the earth, forsaken by the Divine Power, and left 
to make such way among men as it might by the 
inherent force of truth, and the permission of 
auspicious circumstances. Cases are stated in 
which it is taken for granted that Christianity 
can make no way, simply because natural difficul- 
ties exist, such as natural agency cannot in reagon 
be expected to overcome. Anything like a con- 
sistent counting upon a superior power acting with 
the truth, and making it triumph over difficulties, 
such as on natural grounds are unconquerable, is 
jauntily dealt with, as pertaining to those whose 
religion is not entitled to the veneration which 
Christianity has, by the lapse of ages, gained from 
mankind. 

In everything, practice is in danger if theory 
be falsified; and after the right theory has been 
abandoned, the maintenance of right practice is 
always precarious, and never long continued. If 
it be the true theory of Christianity that the liv- 
ing power of the Holy Ghost, additional to pas- 
toral agency, additional to Scriptural truth, ad- 
ditional to every doctrine and every ordinance—a 
power by which the truth is applied and the agent 
quickened for his work, is not to be expected as 


154 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


continually resident and active in the Church, 
that theory ought to be clearly stated, and for- 
mally recognized on the part of all Christians. If 
it be not the true theory, we should take care that 
it do not color any of our habits of thought. 

A religion without the Holy Ghost, though it had 
all the ordinances and all the doctrines of the New 
Testament, would certainly not be Christianity. 
In it the presence and power of the Spirit are 
ever taken to be the vital element. Our world 
without its atmosphere, though the same globe, 
with the same physical characteristics, would be 
another world; and, if inhabited at all, must be 
inhabited by a race governed by laws altogether 
dissimilar to those under which human life is sus- 
tained. Thechange from the Church of the New 
Testament to a Church without the Holy Ghost, 
would certainly not be less in its kind than this. 

All who seriously treat of Christianity must rec- 
ognize the presence of the Spirit as an integral 
part of its system and power; but if this presence 
is to be in some occult and inconceivable manner 
resident in an abstract Church; not in the hearts 
of individual believers, not in the living temple of 
animated bodies and sanctified souls, but in a holy 
Church made up of unholy members, in a sacred 
Ministry made up secular persons, in holy houses 
where worldly multitudes gather, and in holy 
books which ungodly Hcclesiastics handle ;—if this 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 155 


is to be the presence of the Spirit, then the debate 
as to whether it is to be expected in perpetuity or 
not, need excite little interest. 

If His presence is to entitle men to promulgate 
new doctrines contradictory to those already re- 
vealed in His own word, and even to withhold that 
word from the mass of their fellow-men, on the 
plea of denying them a deceptive guide and sub- 
stituting an infallible one, then would His pres- 
ence become a self-contradiction and a danger. In 
none of these lights have we the slightest reason 
given in the word of God to expect the presence of 
the Spirit. We hear not of Him there as dwelling 
elsewhere than in the bodies of believers, or ever 
yielding to future ages the right to depart from 
the ancient ways and the clear revelation of the 
Son of God. 

Neither do we find the promise of His presence 
so given that all action and effort on the part of 
Christians is to be made at every moment depend- — 
ent on each person’s own impression of the Spirit’s 
movement within him. 

But while, on the one hand, we do not expect 
the permanent presence of the Spirit with the 
Church in the Romish sense, or in the sense main- 
tained by estimable Christians of the Society of 
Friends, we must, on the other hand, maintain, 
as we have said, that without His presence and 


operation in the hearts of believers, and in Chris-: 
12 


156 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


tian agents, we cannot have the Christian relig- 
ion. We do not expect visible signs or miraculous 
gifts: for these were not the substantial blessing 
and grace imparted at Pentecost; but were to them 
only heralds and ushers. ‘The real grace and bless- 
ing lay in what we have called the spiritual influ- 
ence of the Holy Ghost, acting on the believer’s 
heart; His ministerial influence, acting on the 
Church; His converting influence, acting on the 
world. ‘These, we contend, are necessary to the 
identity of the Christian religion, and were be- 
stowed for all ages, and will to the end of the world 
be shed on those who perseveringly “ wait’’ for the 
baptism of fire. 


IIT.—Communion of God with Man. 


Whence arises a persuasion which we seldom find 
formally stated, but constantly trace in the words 
of thoughtful men, that our mind is cut off from 
communion with the Father Mind, and, though 
able to draw knowledge from physical objects, and 
from the minds of men, is without any access to 
the Source of spirit, or any recognizable lights 
from Him? On what inch of ground in all the 
realm of reason can we rest the notion that the 
Spirit of God does not communicate actively and 
directly with the spirit of man? Is it that we are 
so completely outcasts, that, “though without 
doubt capable of being acted upon by the Divine 


NESE gilt 


ea aa 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 157 


Being for Divine intents, He will not touch sub- 
jects somean? ‘This would be the death-knell of 
intellect and morals; for, if thus cut off from the 
Source of light, our souls must be lost in the dark 
at last. The sense of sin gives to the conscience 
a feeling of banishment; the only answer to which 
lies in redemption. It is vain to answer it by 
mere reason; for reason offers no footing for the 
feeling, except on ground which revelation first 
discovers, and then bridges over by the Cross. 

Is it that our mental perceptions are all derived 
through physical organs, and that, none such ex- 
isting as channels between God and the soul, no 
communication can take place? Few would be so 
bold as to say this; many are bold enough to as- 
sume it. What! no communication but through 
physical organs? ‘They never explain communi- 
cation, but only increase the mystery. Physical 
organs, it is true, are only acted upon from with- 
out, by physical objects; and all our sensations 
come through such organs. But they never have 
sensations. ‘The organ receives an impulse from 
the light, the air, or other outward object, and 
transmits that impulse to the brain, producing 
a vibration there; but what a gulf between a vi- 
bration in a brain and a sensation of a soul, or an 
idea of heaven, or an emotion of joy. 

It seems no mystery that two men should be 
able to communicate, but a great one that they 


158 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


should be able to do so through an iron wire, 
when they are a thousand miles apart. One 
makes a secret fire carry a thought from his mind 
through a wire toward the mind of the other; a 
sensation is given, and both an idea and an emotion 
follow; but the wire feels none of them. ‘The 
impulse passes along it; and the mind interprets 
that impulse, and turns it into the image of a dy- 
ing father, a new-born babe, a ruined fortune, or 
a Sovereign saying, “ Well done!” All the sen- 
sation, perception, emotion, lie within the mind, 
none of them in the wire. It is just so with or- 
gans; they transmit impulses, but they know 
nothing, feel nothing, and explain nothing. 
The power of communication is a mental power. 
Spirit knows, and gives knowledge. The wonder 
is not that a mind can impart its ideas to a mind 
such as itself, but that, being shut up in a silent 
chamber whence branch out wires incapable of one 
thought or feeling, it can pour along these a vivid 
and changeful fire which conveys its feelings to 
another. 

“No man,” says Paul, touching on these things, 
“knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of 
man which is in him.” 'T’o you all minds are in- 
visible. ‘True, the mind of your neighbor is in 
all respects the fellow of your own; yet you cannot 
tell what is within it. It may be forming plans 
for your ruin or for your good; but this is beyond 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 159 


your eye, or eat, or heart’s divining. very 
man dwells w the imvisible, and often rejoices to 
look out upon a race, no one of which can look in 
upon him. Yet oftener does he rejoice to pour 
himself into others, and multiply his own feelings 
in the spirits around him. When the invisible 
“spirit of man” wills to make known “the things 
of the man,” it has easy, though mysterious, 
means at command. 

A man is seated in his chamber, and deep things 
are passing inhismind. His mother sees that he is 
thinking; but ask her to tell his thoughts, and 
she is at a loss. His wife looks into his eye, and 
knows that he is feeling; but ask her what is the 
spring and course of his emotion, and she is in the 
dark. His little daughter sees something lofty on 
her father’s brow, but what it is she knows not. 
Presently a thousand people are before him, and 
“the spirit of the man” is opening itself. A 
stream of thought is pouring from it, thought 
which ranges from the most familiar objects at 
hand, to those which are hidden in the bosom of 
eternity. Yet all these thoughts, mingled with 
suitable emotion, pass straight from his unseen 
soul into the souls of the thousand people. How 
is this accomplished? 

Between him and them is floating a something 
which we call “sound.’’ The keenest eye cannot 
see it; the most delicate touch, or smell, or taste, 


160 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


can find no trace of it. As it is rushing upon the 
ear, both eye and hand search in vain forit. Yet 
is 1 carrying invisible thought, from a soul invis- 
ible, by channels invisible, into the silent places 
of many souls, where the thoughts it raises are in- 
visible to the nearest neighbor, till expressed in 
looks or words. ‘The mind of the speaker pours a 
succession of impulses through hidden chords to 
his tongue and lips: these strike the air, in which 
the stroke makes a wave; that strikes on the drum 
of the ear, which causes a quivering of a nerve 
behind, that a quivering of the brain; and then 
the soul inside sees an image of Stephen dying, or 
Paul falling on the high-road, or Elijah ascending, 
or Jesus at the right hand of the Father! What 
connection is there between a wave of air, a quiver 
of the brain, and an idea of heaven or hell, of sin 
or holiness? ‘That the connection exists is plain; 
but How? Make it plain how “ the spirit of man,” 
which “ knoweth the things of a man,” can reveal 
them within other spirits. All we can say is, God 
has appointed a channel of communication, given 
to the spirit means of EXPRESSION, and to its fel- 
lows means of PERCEPTION. 

With this fact before us, illustrated, not only in 
the one form just cited, but in a thousand forms 
every day, upon what pretext do we set up a cry of 
mystery as to the communication of the Spirit of 
God with man? Absurdity can reach no limit 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 161 


greater than that of supposing that the central in- 
tellect knows no avenue to all intellect; that is, is 
defective in means of expression. Despair can 
hurl humanity no lower than to say that God, able 
to commune with it, enlighten, renew, and impel 
it, yet distantly stands away. for, if no commu- 
nication exists, the reason lies in Him. ‘To say 
that the defect is not in His power of expression, 
but in our power of perception, changes nothing: 
if He cannot “reveal the things of God” to man, 
with such powers of perception as man has, He 
cannot adapt the expression of His own will to our 
state. 

Many who shun the extreme of denying that 
God does hold communion with human souls, yet 
cover the truth with a soft but cold cloak—a cloak 
of snow—by always speaking loudly of the mys- 
tery. What is the way of the Spirit? How can 
man recognize the voice, the eye, the countenance 
of God? How is it possible to feel His anger or 
His favor, His presence or His withdrawal? Is 
it not a mystery? 

Yes, it isa mystery; butitisnothing more. A 
mystery is the thing we are most accustomed to. 
I know no one thing which I perfectly know. I 
know ten thousand which are full of mysteries. 
The nail of my finger is a mystery; the fact is 
manifest, the mode undiscoverable; about my 
hand I can ask more questions than all mankind 


162 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


can answer; wrist, arm, shoulder, all have myster- 
les; as I approach the heart, the brain, what 
crowds of questions rise and are checked by the 
known impossibility of an answer! If “the way 
of the Spirit” were capable of perfect expla- 
nation, the whole universe would be a riddle; for 
why should that which was so high be fully known, 
and every common thing under our eye contain 
mysteries? The mystery involved in the Lord’s 
communicating with any of His creatures is far 
less than that of our communicating one with an- 
other. He is of infinite intelligence; He planted 
the ear; He gave man speech: for Him therefore 
to communicate with any spirit existing, must be 
easier than for the sun to shine. 

“Hye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 
The Apostle does not say this of heaven: he is not 
even alluding to it; for it is “the glory that zs fo 
be revealed ;’ whereas he says of the “ good things” 
here in view, “God hath revealed them unto us by 
His Spirit.” These good things, then, are not 
teachings, for of them, eye, ear, and mind take cog- 
nizance; nor heaven, for it is not yet revealed; 
but those blessings which are “ prepared ”’ for those 
who come at the Lord’s call—pardon, adoption, 
and the favor of God. Anticipating the inquiry, 
“How can these things be? How can acts of 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 163 


mercy, which pass in the invisible world, be re- 
vealed to us?” the Apostle gives this simple illus- 
tration: “ What man knoweth the things of man, 
save the spirit of man that is in him? Even so 
the things of God knoweth no man, save the 
Spirit.” If the things of God are beyond our eye, 
ear, or discernment, so are those of a man: and if 
man can make his mind known, how much more 
the All-wise! “ Now we have not received the 
spirit that is of the world, but the Spirit that is 
of God, that we might know the things that are 
freely given to us of God.” Adoption is an act 
seen by no man; and were no communication of it 
made to him in whose favor it hath passed, he 
could never by his senses or reason discover it. 
Though adopted, he would he in the spirit of 
bondage. But that we may not be ignorant on 
this essential change in our relation to our heay- 
enly Father, not ignorant of the things which His 
grace has bestowed, He has provided a Comforter, 
whose benign work it is to solace our hearts, by 
letting us “know” what the Lord hath done for 
us. 

The belief that God does not commune with man 
is no result of reason. Reason has no footing for 
it. It is, indeed, hardly a belief; it is a feeling, 
followed by a sort of half-seen mental conclusion. 
A boy, conscious of deserving his father’s anger, 
somehow thinks he will not be received at home. 


164 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Men, conscious that they are aliens from God, re- 
coil from the thought that the very breast, wherein 
they have caged things unclean, may be a shrine 
of Hispresence. A feeling of moral improbability, 
of unfitness, leads the mind to shrink from such 
a hope. Hope, indeed, it does not seem at first: 
the boy forgets the hopefulness of standing by his 
father’s side, in the dread of coming under his 
eye; forgets the joy of regaining his favor, in 
the heat of enmity to his rule and restraints. 

A natural difficulty to the Creator’s communion 
with His rational creatures never existed. <A 
moral one did; and never was problem so deep as, 
How could the Holy One take the impure to His 
arms, and yet continue the Holy One? That prob- 
lem has been solved. ‘The Holy meets the unholy 
over the blood of atonement. There is death for 
evil-doing, wrath against iniquity—yet mercy for 
the repenting. Sin is not encouraged, innocence 
is not confounded with guilt; and yet the fallen 
are lifted up. This moral difficulty being met, 
and no natural one ever having existed, did the 
Lord not commune with the soul of man as with 
His own “ offspring,” the only reason must be that 
He pleased to cut him off from such fellowship. 
To affirm this would be to run into downright 
opposition to the whole scope of revelation. 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 165 


Ill.—The Truth in Demonstration of the Spirit. 


Not a few of those who, if formally expressing 
their belief, would maintain that the Spirit is to 
abide with the Church in all ages; that the idea 
of impossibility in His communing with man is 
absurd, and the cry of mystery unmeaning; never- 
theless, in practice, shut out His agency from 
their own view, and the view of those who may 
be under their influence, by continually speaking 
of the truth, the truth only, as the power to renew 
this sinfulworld. Far be it from us to undervalue 
holy truth, and, above all, the truth which flows 
untainted from the fount of inspiration; but a 
truth, even when Divine, is never more than @ 
declaration of what is. It is not the power which 
renews the human soul, but the instrument of that 
power; not the electric current, but the conductor 
along which the current flows. It is necessary, as 
necessary as the metal wire to the telegraph; but, 
alone, it is as inefficient as the wire when the hid- 
den power does not pervade it. 

You may teach a man the holiest truths, and 
yet leave him a wretched man. Many who learn 
in childhood that “Gop 1s Love,” live disregard- 
ing, and die blaspheming, God. ‘Thousands who 
are carefully taught, “ Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” neglect so great 
salvation all their days. Some of the most wicked 


166 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


and miserable beings that walk the earth are men 
into whose conscience, when yet youthful and un- 
sophisticated, the truth was carefully instilled. 
Did the mere truth suffice to renew, there are 
towns, districts, ay, countries, where all would be 
saints. 

Unmindful of this, and not considering the 
danger of diverting faith from the power to the 
instrument, however beautiful and perfect the in- 
strument may be, many good men, by a culpable 
inadvertence, constantly speak as if the truth had 
an inherent ascendancy over man, and would cer- 
tainly prevail when justly presented. We have 
heard this done till we have been ready to ask, 
“ Do they take men for angels, that mere truth is 
to captivate them so certainly?” ay, and even to 
ask, “ Have they ever heard whether there be any 
Holy Ghost? ” 

On one occasion it was our lot to hear a 
Preacher of name, preaching before a great Mis- 
sionary Society, from the text, “I am come 
to send fire upon earth.”’ Choosing to interpret 
the fire referred to in this passage as the power 
which would purify and renew the earth, he at 
once declared the truth to be that power, and 
most consistently pursued his theme, without ever 
glancing at anything but the instrument. After- 
ward, hearing the merits of the sermon discussed 
by some of the most eminent Ministers of his own 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 167 


denomination, and finding no allusion to its the- 
ology, we asked, “ Did you not remark any theo- 
logical defect?” No one remarked any, till the 
Minister of some obscure country congregation 
broke silence, for the first time, by saying, “ Yes; 
there was not one word init about the Holy Spirit.” 

The belief that the truth is mighty, and by 
reason of its might must prevail, is equally fal- 
lacious in the abstract, as it 1s opposed to the facts 
of human history, and to the word of God. We 
should take the maxim, that truth must prevail, 
as perfectly sound, did you only give us a com- 
munity of angels on whom to try the truth. With 
every intellect clear, and every heart upright, 
doubtless truth would soon be discerned, and, when 
discerned, cordially embraced. But truth, in de- 
scending among us, does not come among friends. 
The human heart offers ground whereon it meets 
error at animmeasurable disadvantage. Passions, 
habits, interests, ay, nature itself, lean to the side 
of error; and though the judgment may assent to 
the truth, which, however, is not always the case, 
still error may gain a conquest only the more not- 
able because of thisimpediment. ‘Truth is mighty 
in pure natures, error in depraved ones. 

Those who compliment Truth upon her might 
have need of much self-possession. What world 
do. they dwell in, that they can utter such flattery 
under the gaze of her clear and sober eye? What 


168 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


are these nations yet neglecting commercial and 
political truth, though all their interests invite 
them to embrace it? What these “enlightened ” 
populations that have had religious truth again 
-and again held up in their view, but have angrily 
rejected it, though to the entailing upon them- 
selves innumerable social disadvantages? Where 
is the town where truth always prevails, or the 
village where error wins no victories? Do they 
who know human nature best, when they have a 
political object to carry, trust most of all to the 
power of truth over a constituency? or would they 
not have far more confidence in corruption and 
revelry? ‘The whole history of man is a melan- 
choly reproof to those who mouth about the might- 
iness of truth. “But,” they say, “truth will pre- 
vail in the long run.” Yes, blessed be God, it 
will; but not because of its own power over hu- 
man nature, but because the Spirit will be poured 
out from on high, opening the blind eyes, and 
unstopping the deaf ears. 

The sacred writings, while ever leading us to 
regard the truth as the one instrument of the sin- 
ner’s conversion and the believer’s sanctification, 
are very far from proclaiming its power over hu- 
man nature, merely because it is truth. On the 
contrary, they often show us that this very fact 
will enlist the passions of mankind against it, and 
awaken enmity instead of approbation. We are 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 169 


ever pointed beyond the truth, to Him who is the 
Source and Giver of truth; and, though we had 
Apostles to deliver the Gospel, are ever led not to 
deem it enough that it should be in “word only, 
but in demonstration of the Spirit and in power.” 

We well know that many who speak of the truth 
as accomplishing all, do not mean the truth with- 
out the Spirit to apply it; but what is meant 
ought to be said. Hold fast the truth as an in- 
strument divinely adapted and altogether neces- 
sary; but, in magnifying the instrument, never 
forget or pass by the agent. The Spirit is the 
truth, in the preacher, in the hearer; the Spirit 
first, the Spirit last, ought to be remembered, 
trusted in, exalted, and not set aside for any more 
captivating name. ‘There should never be even 
the distant appearance of wishing to avoid avow- 
ing a belief in the supernatural, or to reduce 
Christianity to a system capable, at all points, of 
metaphysical analysis. If no supernatural power 
is expected to attend the Gospel, its promulgation 
is both insincere and futile. 


IV.—Progress of Divine Life and Grace among Men. 


In their reluctance to acknowledge any super- 
natural element in religion, many take refuge in 
the idea that, after all, we are not to expect what 
the primitive Christians enjoyed. If this means 
that we are not to expect miracles, to it we have 


20 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


no possible objection. If it means that we are to 
expect less grace, we can give it no kind of credit. 
Nothing can be more contrary to the whole spirit 
and genius of revealed religion, than that the prog- 
ress of years and events should be coupled with 
a diminishing amount of Divine life and grace 
among men. All things promise us progress, not 
retrogression. No principle of Christianity, and 
no passage of the Christian Scriptures, warrants 
the expectation that the system is to decline with 
age, and to grow dim before its day ends. ‘The 
mode of thinking to which we now refer, seems to 
be closely connected with the favorite idea of un- 
belief in the world—that of the Almighty “leay- 
ing,’ aS men express it, one and another province 
of His territories to the care of secondary princi- 
ples and powers. 

Limited as the human mind is, the idea of com- 
bining attention to the general and to the par- 
ticular always presents to it an extreme difficulty. 
In its own experience, when taking a general view, 
it necessarily overlooks particulars; when mi- 
nutely attending to particulars, it necessarily 
overlooks generals. Unconsciously transferring 
the idea of its own limitation to the Supreme 
Power, it would ease Him of the incomprehensible 
task of at once minutely caring for every atom, 
and gloriously ruling the universe. But in the 
presence of the universal, the distinction between 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 171 


the particular and the general fades away. Arti- 
ficial lights either shine in one particular apart- 
ment, leaving the street dim, or shine upon the 
street generally, leaving each particular apartment 
of the houses dim. But when the Universal Light 
arises, He knows no distinction between general 
illumination and particular. Every little case- 
ment in the world is equally lighted as the broad 
valley of the Ganges, and every solitary daisy as 
well shone upon as if there was no other thing 
upon earth to lighten. 

“He leaves, He leaves, He creates and leaves, 
leaves to the course of nature, leaves to general 
Jaws.” Such is the crude language we continu- 
ally hear from men who would transfer the small 
ideas of human sense to the infinite sphere of the 
Godhead. The idea of the Omnipresent leaving, 
forsaking any part of His own dominions, put- 
ting a limit to Himself, creating, in fact, the 
most incomprehensible of all incomprehensible 
things, a place where there was not a Creator— 
the idea of His presence being an effort, or His 
embrace and superintendence of nature being a 
task, is unworthy even of the dignity of physical 
science, much more of the sweep of human thoughts. 

On the wings of the wind—on the universal flow 
of electric power—on the swift sunbeams, filling 
up with a finite infinity the whole expanse of the 


solar system at once—on the light of a fixed star 
13 


aay 2 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


present with our eye, and at the same moment 
present through space inconceivably immense at 
every point from our eye to the star, and then away 
as far beyond, and round and round again at all 
conceivable points of the circumference on every 
side—on these confessedly finite objects our 
thought may rest, and rise step by step, till it 
easily springs to the idea of a complete and con- 
sistent Infinite, a presence literally everywhere, a 
power constant as eternity, an activity to which 
inaction would be effort, an eye to which attention 
is but nature, to which slumber would be an in- 
terruption of repose. 

Those who would exclude the Divine Being from 
His own universe, have been often exclaimed 
against, and justly; but how much more may they 
be exclaimed against who would exclude Him from 
Tlis own Church, and from communion with His 
children? Had His power been exhausted by the 
act of creating and establishing the Church, and 
then had He committed its future course to the 
development of natural laws and the inherent 
power of the truth, Himself retiring from all ac- 
tion in the great battle whereupon He had set His 
servants, we might reasonably look upon Chris- 
tianity as a religion which perhaps was better than 
others, more serviceable to the social interests of 
those who embrace it, and more genial in its in- 
fluence upon the destiny of mankind; but one in 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH ives: 


the propagation of which no higher motives than 
these could inspire us, no strength above that of 
nature could fortify laborers. So far, however, 
from this being the case, the express promise with 
regard to the Spirit was, “ He shall abide with you 
forever;” and when about to leave the disciples, 
as to His bodily presence, the Saviour said, ‘* And, 
lo, Lam with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world.” A presence this, better than a bodily 
presence; a presence by His Spirit and His power, 
whereby the souls of His children are made glad, 
and their hearts made strong, not in some solitary 
village of Galilee for the evening, but at the 
same hour all over the earth, wherever two or three 
are gathered together in His name. That pres- 
ence will never be withdrawn while there is a be- 
hever whose heart embraces the promise; and such 
believers will not fail whilst the world stands. So 
far from anything in Scripture countenancing the 
idea that Christians of all subsequent ages were 
to be deprived of that Divine help which consti- 
tuted the strength and holiness of the primitive 
disciples, we have no intimation that they were 
to be even inferior in spiritual attainments. On 
the contrary, everything countenances the expec- 
tation that, as generation succeeds generation, 
the influence of holy faith and holy example will 
steadily tend to the elevation of the standard. 

As Christianity makes progress among a popu- 


174 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


lation, every new household which becomes imbued 
with it is an additional power toward elevating 
the standard of character in that neighbor- 
hood. It is impossible to calculate the influ- 
ence exerted, even in a country like our own, 
where religion has yet so much to do, upon those 
who are still ungodly. In many points their con- 
sciences have been trained, by force of example and 
precept, to a tenderness and activity which Chris- 
tian doctrine alone could give; and, as age after 
age rolls on, and the proportion between saints 
and sinners becomes altered, the latter diminish- 
ing, the former growing, the image of God in 
man will be yet more and more brightly seen, if 
not more conspicuously, in some rare and blessed 
individuals, yet much more generally as a com- 
mon ornament and glory of human nature. For 
a Christian now to expect to be made as holy by 
the grace of God as the saints of the New Testa- 
ment, so far from being presumption, is scarcely 
a worthy measure of faith. It may be fairly said 
that, if we are not better than those who went be- 
fore us, we are not so good; for the very light of 
their example sheds upon us an influence to which 
nothing corresponding was shed upon them, and 
thereby gives us a clear advantage, by which, with 
a similar measure of grace, we ought to present a 
character more complete. 

Were it once proved that our moral strength in 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 171d 


the present day was natural, then, indeed, might 
we reasonably limit our expectations, but not to 
partial attainments and incomplete holiness; for 
on that ground the reasonable limitation would be, 
not, “We shall attain-to much, though not as 
much as the early Christians,” but, “ We shall at- 
tain to nothing.”” Our Lord’s word is not, “ With- 
out Me ye can do little,” but, “ Without Me ye can 
do nothing.” If it, then, be settled that in this 
age, as in the first, our strength is not of nature, 
but of the Lord, the reasonable range of our ex- 
pectation, now as then, is to be measured by His 
glorious power. The question no longer is, Of 
what are we capable in ourselves, or by ourselves? 
but, What can He perform? and to what extent 
can He manifest forth His glory by making us 
monuments of His power, or mirrors to display His 
image? That grace of His which was shed so 
plentifully on the believers of the first days, is not 
an intermittent radiance, like the flash of a hu- 
man eye, but is steady as the glory which streams 
from the face of the sun. Waning or exhaustion 
it does not know; and from age to age, from gener- 
ation to generation, His saints will grow more and 
more mature, human life will increasingly reflect 
the glory of the Lord, and display His power to 
make weak mortals beset with temptation, meet to 
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
light. 


176 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


V.—Comforts and Privileges of Believers. 


Some who gladly admit that the Church, gener- 
ally, may advance in Christian virtues, yet hesi- 
tate to believe that individual Christians in our 
day are to enjoy the same comforts of the Spirit 
as were SO conspicuous in the primitive Christians. 
Among these latter nothing is more noticeable 
than filial confidence and joy: their reconciliation 
to the Lord, their interest in the death and in- 
tercession of Christ, their consciousness of regen- 
eration, of deliverance from sins once reigning 
over them, their clear foretaste of heaven, and 
their peace in the prospect of death, shine 
throughout the New Testament, and all the earlier 
records of the Church. This was the natural 
‘fruit of the Spirit,” the natural effect of such a 
Comforter dwelling in the heart as the Redeemer 
had promised. Take this characteristic away, and 
they would at once fall from the level of “ children 
of light,” of “heirs of God and joint heirs with 
Christ,” down to that of the votaries of other re- 
ligions, among whom personal “joy in God,” and 
prospects of immortal bliss, are things unknown. 

As we said before, that a religion without the 
Holy Spirit would not be Christianity, so we may 
say that religionists without the Spirit in their 
hearts would not be Christians. “ Ye are in the 
Spirit, if so de that the Spirit of God dwell in 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 174 


you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of His.” It requires much of 
that cold daring which men may acquire as to 
things spiritual, for any one who even respects, 
though he should not study, the record of Chris- 
tianity at its source, to teach that it is not a com- 
mon privilege of believers to enjoy a sense of their 
salvation, and to walk in the light of God’s for- 
giving countenance. No scrap of Holy writ even 
seems to favor this attempt to sink modern Chris- 
tians to a point almost infinitely below that of 
ancient ones; for who can measure the distance 
between a soul which is singing, “ We know that 
we have passed from death unto life,” and one that 
is saying, “I cannot hope to know, till death 
strikes me, whether or not I shall escape dying 
forever ’’? 

A change more serious can hardly be imagined 
in the relations of the Lord to His people, than 
would take place under the Christian dispensation, 
if, beginning by enabling believers to say, ‘“ We 
have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens,’’ He ended by leaving 
them in utter doubt as to their future destiny; if, 
beginning by giving them a sense of His favor, clear 
as day, unspeakably joyful, He ended by leaving 
them to serve Him throughout life, without ever 
feeling conscious that He smiled upon them; if, 
beginning by holding communion with them, He 


178 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ended by leaving them to doubt whether He was 
even reconciled. It is trifling at once with a 
man’s common sense, and with his most sacred 
hopes and fears, to tell him that he is called with 
the same calling as early believers, by the voice of 
the same Redeemer, under the same covenant of 
grace, and with the same promise of adoption; but 
that, while his brother, ages ago, had “ peace with 
God,” and “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” 
knew himself to be a child and then an heir of 
God, and daily felt that heaven was his home, he 
is to proceed on his pilgrimage without any of 
these comforts, and learn at the end whether or 
not his soul is to perish. Who has given any man 
the right to assert that such a change has taken 
place in the relation of the adopting Father to 
His adopted children, affirming Him to have 
grown, in our age, too indifferent to soothe their 
hearts, and make them partakers of the joy which 
He spreads among the angels when He declares 
that “the lost is found” ? 

The change which the supposition we are com- 
bating would require in the office, or, at least, in 
the operation, of the Spirit Himself, under the 
very dispensation of the Spirit, is sufficiently 
grave, one might imagine, to make the least care- 
ful pause, ere he assumed that it had taken place. 
The act wherein the everlasting Father absolves 
a guilty being from his offences, and recognizes 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 179 


him before the angels, as an heir of His glory, 
must ever be of deep importance in the govern- 
ment of God. Of old time, when that great act 
took place, heaven rejoiced; but the deed did not 
remain without effect upon the earth. The Kine 
had proclaimed a pardon, and that proclamation 
must have effect. The Comforter sped to the 
mourner’s heart. ‘‘ Where the Spirit of the Lord 
is, there is liberty.” With the presence of the 
Comforter, the captive found “deliverance,” and 
he that was bound, an “opening of the prison;”’ 
and, tasting the liberty of the children of God, he 
sang, ““O Lord, I will praise Thee: though Thou 
wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, 
and Thou comfortedst me.” 

Are we, then, on the word of some men, with- 
out one intimation of Scripture to support them, 
to believe that the Spirit has so essentially changed 
His mode of dealing with a forgiven sinner, that 
now the decree of pardon promulged above, and 
hailed by angels, receives no effect in the soul of 
him whom it absolves? that the Comforter ab- 
stains from comforting, leaving the ransomed cap- 
tive still to mourn his captivity, without reliev- 
ing him of his load or his chain? O Dovn or 
Peace, ancient Comforter of the pilgrims who 
travelled this heavenward road before us! they 
say that Thy wing has grown weary with the lapse 
of time! 


180 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


How great a change would take place also in the 
privileges of believers! ‘‘ We are of God,” “ born 
of God,” “ heirs of God,” “ followers of God, as dear 
children,” “fellow-citizens with the saints, and 
of the household of God;” “ once darkness, now 
light in the Lord.” Such was the sense of adop- 
tion enjoyed in apostolic times. Of all the privi- 
leges wherewith the soul of man ever has been 
blessed, or ever can be blessed in this life, by far 
the most consoling and elevating is the sense of 
adoption into the family of God. No man can 
read the New Testament, and deny that this was 
an ordinary characteristic of the believers then 
living, or that it was a main element of their 
strength, kindling in themajoy which made them 
ready to face reproach and emulate high service. 
Where is the intimation that this privilege was to 
be denied to Christians in succeeding ages? 

When Paul says, “ But I obtained mercy, that 
in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long- 
suffering, for a pattern to them which should here- 
after believe on Him to life everlasting,” does he 
give any intimation that the believers of following 
ages, though they should be believers just as he, 
and should obtain “life everlasting ” just as he, 
and should have his case and his mercies be- 
tore their eyes, as ‘‘a pattern” whereby to measure 
their expectations from Jesus Christ’s “long-suf- 
fering,” were yet to lose an essential portion of the 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 181 


believer’s joy; namely, the power of saying, “ But 
I obtained mercy”? Even the Psalmist, under a 
dispensation lower than our own, could say, “I 
said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, 
and Thou forgavest the iniquity of mysin.” Does 
he hint that this is a privilege to which only few 
can attain, and from which the children of God, 
in the better days to come, shall be ordinarily de- 
barred? “For this shall every one that is godly 
pray unto Thee, in a time when Thou mayest be 
found ’—conveying a clear intimation, that, just 
as he, on confession of his sins, found forgiveness, 
such forgiveness as healed the grief of soul which 
he describes a moment before, and enabled him 
to sing, as he here does, “ Blessed is he whose 
transgression is forgiven,” * so would every godly 
disposed person find an acceptable time, if he 
prayed to the same merciful Lord for like forgive- 
ness. No godly man, no one whose heart was seek- 
ing after God in the day of David, could read this 
without feeling that the “ blessedness”’ of absolu- 
tion was held out to him as his privilege. Indeed, 
all through the Psalms it is taken for granted, that 
the righteous man rejoices in his forgiving God. 
And does the grace of our blessed Redeemer grow 
narrower as time advances? Does He gradually 
withdraw the light of His countenance, till upon 
us of the latter days complete darkness settles, and 


* Psalm xxxii. 


182 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


we are doomed to grope our way through life’s 
temptations without the encouragement of one 
smile from Him, and at the end to set a doubtful 
foot on the threshold of eternity? 

The idea-of any such deterioration in the privi- 
lege of believers is totally groundless; without one 
prop in Scripture or in reason. It is a structure 
of ice, formed in cold seasons, and melts away when 
brought either in the sunlight of Scripture, or 
the warmth of living Christian society. We could 
not easily believe in any accession to our privi- 
leges, beyond those of our brethren in early times, 
unless it were clearly taught in the word of God; 
but if, without Scripture proof, we must believe 
either in an increase or in a diminution of them, 
we should choose the former, as far more supported 
by the analogy of the Lord’s dealings with men. 

‘“ PEACE” was the Saviour’s legacy to His follow- 
ers; peace to be imparted by the Comforter; peace 
which the world cannot give, and which passeth 
understanding. He leaves no hint that this leg- 
acy was to be recalled before “the end of the 
world.” Indeed, in both the Old Testament and 
the New, happiness is an essential part of relig- 
ion; that kind of happiness which is called, “joy 
in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The 
reigning of such joy in any human bosom clearly 
presupposes that the individual is satisfied of the 
reconciliation of God to him, notwithstanding his 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 183 


sins. Wherever this is doubtful, distrust, fear, 
and gloom must ever accompany the contemplation 
of the Most High; and this gloom would settle 
most densely on the most contrite spirit. Happi- 
ness is to be a feature of religion to the last. That 
odious caricature of Christianity, which offers to 
the view of the world a man with all the doctrines 
of the Gospel on his lips, but gloom on his brow, 
disquiet in his eye, and sourness in his bearing, 
has done infinite injustice to our benign religion, 
and infinite harm to those who never knew its 
worth. Now, as in the days of Solomon, “her 
ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace.” Now, as in the days of David, she “ puts 
gladness into the heart, more than in the time 
that their corn and their wine increased.” Now, 
as in the days of Paul, she gives “joy and peace in 
believing.” Happiness is not a separable append- 
age of true piety; 1t 1s part of it, and an essential 
part: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” 
Some would regard happiness as if it were to re- 
ligion what a fine complexion is to the human 
countenance—a great addition to its beauties if 
present; but if not, no feature is wanting. In 
the sacred writings, from first to last, it is re- 
garded as a feature, which we cannot remove with- 
out both wounding and defacing. The kingdom 
of God is not only “righteousness,” but “right- 
eousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” 


184 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


While that kingdom stands, this “ joy in the Holy 
Ghost” will be the privilege of the children of 
God; and let no man come between the humblest 
believer of this our day, and the full light of his 
Redeemer’s countenance. Let none take it for 
granted that the work of God in the soul of man 
has degenerated; that the merciful Father no 
more gladdens the prodigal He accepts, by letting 
him know He loveshim; that Jesus no longer says, 
“ Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee;” or 
that when a penitent is accepted as a son, the 
gracious Comforter does not now, as in the old 
time, hasten on His dove-like message to diffuse 
heavenly peace in another troubled bosom. 

The assertion sometimes confidently made, that 
the witness of the Spirit to our adoption is given to 
some believers, years after their conversion, as the 
reward of special holiness, has not even a pretext 
of Scriptural footing. The witness of the Spirit, 
so far from being the reward of sanctification, is 
one of its chief springs; for without love there is 
no holiness, and we only love because we feel that 
God first loved us. “ Because ye are sons, God 
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your 
heart, crying, Abba, Father.” Not because you 
are old and eminent among the sons of God, but 
because you are sons: it is not a good-service re- 
ward, but a birthright; not a crown of distinc- 
tion, but a joy of adoption. “In whom ye also 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 185 


trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the 
Gospel of your salvation; in whom after that ye 
believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of 
promise.’’ Here the order is, ‘Ye heard, —be- 
lieved, were sealed:”’ no long period of doubt and 
labor intervenes between the believing and the 
sealing. The father of the prodigal does not keep 
him for years, working “as one of his hired ser- 
vants,’’ before he prints the fatherly kiss of rec- 
onciliation on his cheek and on his heart. 

The hackneyed objection, that it is presumption 
for any one to say that he is a child of God, takes 
too much for granted. It never is presumption 
to acknowledge what you are. Had David never 
been taken from the sheepcot and made King, 
it would have been presumption in him to say 
that he had; but, when it was the case, he was in 
gratitude bound to own and to commemorate the 
mercy showed to him. So, if a man has not been 
delivered from the dominion of sin, and adopted 
into the family of God, for him to say that such 
is the case is presumption; but if he has, then 
not to praise his Redeemer for it, would be in- 
gratitude. Saying that it is presumption for any 
one to call himself the child of God, takes it for 
granted that no one is; or else it is absurd. _Pre- 
sumption has many forms; and it is worth consid- 
ering, whether a great and good Being would most 
disapprove the presumption which expected too 


186 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


much from His goodness, or the presumption 
which dared positively to disbelieve His promise. 

Many who readily admit that, to some extent 
at least, the Church in all ages will enjoy the 
gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit; and who 
would not deny that the first believers were favored 
with direct manifestations of the favor of God, yet 
make a difficulty of believing that, when sinners 
are forgiven in the present age, they are com- 
forted by the Spirit manifesting Himself in their 
hearts, and crying, “Abba, Father.” They do 
not deny that even in our day, forgiven sinners 
are solaced with a confidence that they are for- 
given; but they see prudential reasons against 
admitting that this is imparted by the direct wit- 
ness of the Spirit, and would arrive at it by a pro- 
cess which, however unwittingly on their part, 
removes the office of sealing the adopted children 
of God from the Spirit, and gives it to the reason 
of man. They teach the seeker of salvation that, 
instead of looking to the Cross for mercy, till the 
Spirit, as the Comforter, “reveals the Sdn of God 
in his heart; he is certainly to look to the 
Cross, but not to expect that to bring any such 
manifestation; on the contrary, he is only to 
learn what are the marks of a child of God, to 
compare his life with them, and, if it and they 
agree, his mind will arrive at the comfortable per- 
suasion that he is a child of God. 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 187 


This is one instance of the common error of tak- 
ing part of a process for the whole. On the part of 
the Christian, the comparison of the Scriptural 
marks of the regenerated with his own character, is 
not only good, but absolutely necessary; for,no mat- 
ter what may be his supposed comforts, j oys, or reve- 
lations, if, in his life, he is not led by the Spirit 
of God, he is not a son of God. But because 
certain evidence is essential as a corroboration, it 
does not follow that it is the chief evidence of 
the fact, the first ground of conviction. As a 
guard against delusion, a strengthening of our con- 
fidence, and a constant stimulus to press forward 
to the things which are before, a sober judgment 
passed upon our own progress in grace is Scrip- 
tural, rational, and indispensable. Ag the mode 
of binding up the broken heart of a penitent, of 
imparting to him the first feeling of filial confidence 
in the Lord, it is neither Scriptural nor rational. 
It never can be the original ground of conscious- 
ness in any soul, that, through the abundance of 
grace, I, even I, am an adopted child of God. 

Yet this is the consciousness to be given, and 
that not to the heart of one who is “whole,” but 
of one who is “sick;” not of a man who thinks 
that he is good, who is ready to interpret every- 
thing in his own favor, and has no feeling that he 
is vile, or that the Lord isangry with him; but of 


one who now feels what probably he believed all 
14 


188 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


his life, that he is a sinner, covered with dark and 
filthy spots, the displeasure of the Lord hanging 
over him for many unholy deeds, and his poor 
soul both fitted for destruction and exposed to it. 
Until painfully sensible of his need of Christ, no 
man flees to Him for refuge; and one in this state 
of feeling is soberly told, that his burden is to be 
removed, and the sense of his salvation to be 
originated, by his being satisfied of the agreement 
of his own life with the fruits of the Spirit, as 
stated in the word of God. 

What are those fruits? “Love, joy, peace,” 
etc., or “righteousness and peace and joy in the 
Holy Ghost.” No enumeration of the fruits of 
the Spirit will be found which excludes peace and 
joy, much less love; and from these graces, if, indeed, 
not from the last named alone, spring the various 
fruits which unitedly constitute “ righteousness.” 
The poor penitent, then, is not to be first relieved 
of his load, and given to feel that God loves him; 
but, previous to obtaining such Divine comfort, 
he is to become satisfied that his love, joy, peace, 
and other graces, are such as mark the children of 
God; that is, while yet feeling that the Lord is 
angry with him, he is to love the Lord; while yet 
feeling that his soul is unsaved, he is to feel joy 
in the Holy Ghost. If it be said that the feeling 
of the Lord’s wrath and his own danger is removed 
before the filial affections appear, then a direct 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 189 


action of the Comforter, antecedent to his satisfac- 
tion with his own graces, is admitted; and if that 
be denied, there is no alternative but to conclude 
that, at the same time and in the same heart, one 
can both feel that he is under God’s anger, and 
love God as a forgiving Father; can feel that he 
is in danger of hell, and enjoy spiritual peace. If 
the sense of wrath and danger is removed before 
the fruits of the Spirit appear, there is a direct 
witness of the Spirit Himself; if not till after, 
the totally incompatible states of mind just men- 
tioned must coexist. 


The relation of the fruit of the Spirit to the wit- 
ness of the Spirit is clearly indicated tous. John 
says, ““ We love Him because He first loved us.” 
Here the fruit, “We love,” is made consequent 
on our sense of the fact, “ He first loved us.” To 
say that we first know that God loves us, because 
we feel that we love Him, is to make the fruit of 
the Spirit the foundation of the witness of the 
Spirit; a relation totally repugnant to the princi- 
ple announced in this text, and pervading the New 
Testament, as, indeed, alse the Old. “Bless the 
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; 
who forgiveth al thine iniquities.” The fact of 
forgiveness ascertained is the ground of filial 
gratitude; not filial gratitude the ground from 
which the fact of forgiveness is inferred. 


190 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Mental conclusions, as to spiritual truths, do not 
govern the feelings. The marks of “a child of 
wrath” are plainly laid down. Thousands know 
that they bear them; and yet this produces no 
_ contrition or distress till the convincing Spirit 
pierces their hearts. As it is with convincing, so 
would it be with comforting. A mental conclu- 
sion as to my own spiritual attainments would 
never dispel a sense of guilt from my conscience, 
or make my trembling heart “rejoice in the 
Lord.” Did an awakened sinner conclude a hun- 
dred times that the marks in the Bible and the 
traits in his character agreed, his wounded spirit 
having no other balm, all this concluding would 
never heal his sore. The same voice which spoke 
condemnation into his conscience, must speak 
justification; the same hand which broke his hard 
heart, must bind it up. 

The deeper the penitence of any one, the slower 
would he be to take comfort from any good in 
himself; therefore, on a theory which makes this 
the foundation of comfort, the further would he 
be from finding rest; while, on the more evangelical 
view, the very depth of his penitence would drive 
him the more speedily to bring his burden to the 
Cross, when it would fall off. 

This allusion brings Bunyan and his Pilgrim 
once more to our view. He does not set Christian 
to undo his own burden by arguing, “I have fled 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 191 


from the City of Destruction; I have forsaken 
house and friends, wife and children; have re- 
sisted temptations to return; have knocked at the 
gate and entered in, and am in the narrow path; ” 
but, with all this done, he brings him to “a place 
somewhat ascending,” where stands a cross, and, 
“just as Christian came up with the cross, his bur- 
den loosed from his shoulders, and fell from off 
his back.” He did not cast off the burden by a 
process which could easily be explained; but, 
when he set -his eye on the cross, it fell off of it- 
self: and “it was very suprising to him that the 
sight of the cross should thus ease him of his bur- 
den.” And so itis to others; but, however surpris- 
ing, do thou, my penitent brother, heed no other 
direction than that which points thine eye straight 
to the Cross; for pardon, for escape from hell, for 
rest, and hope, and purity, look thither, thither, 
only thither. If thy burden fall not at once, yet 
still look, look to the Cross, and fall it will, far 
sooner, and far more surely, than if thou attempt 
to untie it by thy arguments. 

As Christian thus stood before the cross, won- 
dering, the “ THREE Shining Ones came to him; 
the first said, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee;’ the 
second stripped him of his rags, and clothed him 
with change of raiment; the third, also, set a 
mark on his forehead, and gave him a roll with 
a seal upon it, which he bid him look on as he 


192 - THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ran, and that he should give it in at the celestial 
gate.” 

This is unsophisticated Christianity. A bur- 
dened sinner, after discouragements and wander- 
ings, comes, at last, to the foot of the Cross. He 
looks, and is healed; his pardon, freely given, is 
tenderly manifested to him. The Father, Son, and 
Spirit unite to assure his heart, and give him 
present and abiding peace. He receives an evidence 
of acceptance, whereby he may always— 


—“ Read his title clear 
To mansions in the skies,” 


After this, the more he “searches ” his own self, 
“and proves” his own self, “ whether he be in the 
faith,” the better for his vigilance and progress. 
But no such examining before would have unloosed 
his burden, or given him the roll. 

The theory of an inferential comforting of be- 
lievers, as a substitute for the Scriptural mode of 
a “witness” of the Spirit, is singularly helpless; 
for at every step, it is obliged to lean upon that 
which it professes to dispense with and replace. 
It rests all “ quietness and assurance,” for penitent 
hearts, on the fruits of the Spirit; and the very 
chief of those fruits, “love,” etc., presupposes the 
witness of the Spirit, by a necessity as clear as that 
by which repentance presupposes His convincing 
operation. 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 193 


No; the sealing and solacing of penitent be- 
lievers isnot left to mere reasoning, especially with 
a foundation so liable to be misapprehended as 
our own attainments in grace. It is the work 
and office of that “other Comforter” whom our 
dying Lord promised; and let no man take it out 
of His hand! He it is who cries in the heart, 
“Abba, Father!’”? He who seals, He who bears 
witness, He who sheds abroad the love of God, He 
who enables us to know the things that are freely 
given tous of God. Any attempt to escape the 
mystery involved in the Holy Spirit revealing the 
mercy of God to a human soul, only leads to con- 
tradictions and perplexities. ‘To the old question, 
“How can these things be?” the one sufficient 
answer is, “They are spiritually discerned.” 
What the Lord spiritually reveals, the soul can 
spiritually discern; and a Divine presence, or a 
Divine communication, may be assumed always 
to carry its own evidence with it, first to the con- 
sciousness, and then, by its fruits, to the reason. 
“One thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I 
seGay 

It is not to be wondered at, that many who are 
sincere, and even earnest, pass the days of their 
pilgrimage in gloom, having no roll in their 
bosom, which they know can be presented “at the 
celestial gate;’’ no conscious title to enter into 
the city; no permanent “joy or peace in beliey- 


194 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ing.” Nothing is more dangerous than to divert 
the eye from the one object of faith. And if per- 
sons are not taught to look, and look upon the 
Cross, until their sins are blotted out, and the 
comforting Spirit Himself heals their wounds, but 
to seek rest by noting their own progress in the 
Christian graces, and are at the same time left 
without any fellowship of saints, through which 
they might learn by what steps of fear and doubt, 
of despair, and hope, and faith, others, whose whole 
spirit savors of the peace of God, obtained that 
blessing; is it not natural that they should walk 
in dim moonlight, instead of walking in the sun? 
Yet, even amid those so dealt with, the Lord often- 
times breaks up man’s theories, by converting a 
sinner with such manifestation of the Spirit, that 
it would be equally impossible to persuade him that 
his peace first came by contemplating his graces, 
and to keep him from telling what the Lord had 
done for his soul. 

The character of the Christian Church, as a 
whole, must always be ruled by the character of 
individual Christians; for the Church is but the 
assembly and aggregate of individuals. If, then, 
as the ages advance, the individual Christian de- 
generate, the Church must gradually degenerate 
also, her ministry be debilitated, and her efforts 
upon the world be less fruitful. All Christian 
character depends on the relations of the soul 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 195 


with its Creator: if these be cold, instead of being 
joyous; if they be governed by the feeling of a 
doubtful reconciliation, instead of that of a happy 
sonship; then, of necessity, the life is overcast 
with the shadows of not improbable perdition, in- 
stead of being sunned with cloudless hopes of 
glory; and service is rendered as to an austere 
Master, instead of to a most forgiving and loving 
Father. Strike from the language of the Christian 
the words, “Our fellowship is with the Father 
and the Son,” and at once we have a race whose 
religion is not the religion of John, whose heart- 
strength is not drawn from the same sources as 
his. 

Whether it be in comforts, in sensible com- 
munion with the reconciled Deity, or in practical 
sanctification of life, we contend that all Scrip- 
ture holds out to us disciples of this actual hour, 
poor and undeserving though we be, the same 
sources and the same measure of grace as were 
open to our brethren of former times. There has 
been no recall of the Spirit, no curtailing of the 
“abundant pardon,” no abridging of the privileges 
of the adopted. The promise of the Holy Spirit 
was not only to the first converts; but, as Peter, 
addressing them, said, “to us, and to our children, 
and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the 
Lord our God shall call.” TWowever distant from 
that spot in Jerusalem, and however distant from 


196. THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


that moment of time, the call might sound, it 
would carry with it the PROMISE; even that 
promise, the fulfilment of which made the early 
Church so holy and so victorious. The flames, 
the tongues, the outward signs, were not the say- 
ing grace of the Spirit. ‘That was ‘“ within 
you,” in the soul of man, and was shown in “ new 
creatures.” That saving grace of the Spirit, 
working in Christians now, constitutes their iden- 
tity with those of old. Without this, in apostolic 
times, though one spoke with “the tongues of 
angels and of men,” and could “ work all miracles,” 
he was not a true disciple. With this, in our 
times, though one work no miracle, and speak 
not with tongues, he is a true disciple; for “as 
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the 
sons of God.” Miraculous gifts were not of the es- 
sence, but separable attendants, of areal Christian; 
and all that was then essential remains to us, un- 
impaired and free as ever it was to them. 

Father, Son, and Spirit! pardon the unbelief 
which has imagined that Thou didst repent of 
the exceeding abundance of grace once given to 
Thy ransomed Church! Afflict us not on account 
of it, by a real withdrawal of Thy presence! 
Manifest forth Thy glory anew, by fillmg Thy 
children with joy and light, that the world may 
see that Thine ancient love and grace remain our 
heritage! 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 197 


VI.—The True Ministers of Christ. 


Next to the question, whether the privileges of 
the modern Christian, as respects grace, are to 
be equal with those of the primitive one, comes 
the question, whether the Christian ministry is 
now essentially the same institution as at first? 
If believers are not now the same as formerly, it 
is impossible that the same religion should be 
preserved in the world; and if the Ministers be 
not the same, it is highly improbable that the 
ordinary members of the Church will be so. Few 
would take the ground that our Lord founded His 
ministry on an unstable basis, requiring essential 
changes to render it capable of perpetuation in 
any age or country to which Christianity might 
extend: and all would admit the high probability 
that the principles on which He established it 
were those best adapted for its success under every 
future change of circumstances. 

When we look at the example of the New Testa- 
ment, its spirit, usages, and principles, it is too 
manifest to need more than assertion, that the 
anointing of the Holy Spirit was the one thing 
essential in the Minister of the Gospel. As we 
have before said that a religion without the Holy 
Spirit would not be Christianity, and that re- 
ligionists without the Holy Spirit would not be 
Christians, so we may strongly say that teachers 


198 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


without the Holy Spirit would not be Christian 
Ministers, according to the original sense of that 
term, the only sense in which we find it employed 
in the sacred writings. Every arrangement re- 
specting the training, or labors, of Christian 
Ministers, which does not proceed upon the ground 
that they are certainly to be men first regenerated, 
then gifted for the ministry, and moved to it by 
the operation of the Holy Spirit—an operation 
not to be assumed without proof, but to be tested 
by its fruits—must be as faulty in theory, and as 
inefficient in practice, as any arrangement for the 
employment of firearms, which did not proceed on 
the ground that explosion is the source of power. 
The bow was a mighty weapon, and its combination 
of steel and timber, of cord and arm, of the strength 
of the vegetable, the mineral, the animal, entitled 
it to the admiration and confidence of many a 
host; and, as all its forces were mechanical, no 
question ever needed to be raised but one lying 
within the limits of mechanical inquiry. But 
the moment you adopt powder as your impeller, 
the elasticity of yew, or the strength of muscle, 
are considerations out of place. You have left 
mechanics, and cast yourself upon chemistry; and 
all your calculations must proceed on the ground 
that you have but to provide an instrument which 
will co-operate with an explosive agent. 

The New Testament ministry rests not on mental, 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 199 


emotional, or educational strength, but using each 
of these as occasion may serve, finds its own power 
in a spiritual influence; and all reasoning applied 
to it, without being founded on this fact, is rea- 
soning on the rifle upon principles belonging to 
the bow. 

The miraculous gifts imparted to many in the 
early Church are carefully ranked and marked by 
the hand of the Apostle as inferior to those gifts 
which were “for edification, and exhortation, and 
comfort.”’ ‘‘ And God hath set some in the Church, 
first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teach- 
ers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, 
governments, diversities of tongues.” * Here 
miracle-working, healing, and speaking with di- 
vers tongues, are set as inferior gifts to those 
whereby men are constituted teachers or prophets. 
A similar design is observed in Ephesians iv. 11: 
“And He gave some, Apostles; and some, Prophets; 
and some, Evangelists; and some, Pastors and 
Teachers.” Here we do not find any miraculous 
gifts even mentioned as part of the winstitution 
of Christ “for the perfecting of the saints, for 
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
body of Christ:” to this—the true end of the 
ministry—the effects produced by miraculous gifts 
were only auxiliary. ‘True, the Apostles, Prophets, 
and Evangelists, as, indeed, also the Pastors and 

*1 Cor. xii. 28. 


200 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Teachers, possessed, and often exercised, miracu- 
lous gifts; but it was not by these they effected 
the “perfecting of the saints, the work of the 
ministry, or the edifying of the body of Christ.” 
The essential point with regard to every one pro- 
posed for the sacred office is, to ascertain whether 
or not he is “a man sent of God.” 

As the gift of the Spirit Himself is represented 
as consequent upon the ascension of our Lord, so, 
in the passage in Ephesians to which we have just 
alluded, the institution of the ministry also is 
represented as the result of His triumphant ascen- 
sion. “He ascended up on high, He led cap- 
tivity captive, and gave gifts unto men;”’ and 
“ He gave some, Apostles; and some, Prophets,”’ 
etc. These were the gifts which He, from His 
throne of mediation, bestowed on His Church— 
men endued with power by His Spirit, and also 
moved by the same Spirit to spend their lives in 
the work of the ministry for the edifying of the 
body of Christ. Whether we take the Prophets 
under the old dispensation, or the Lord’s messen- 
gers under the new, we find that the distinctive 
characteristics of a true Minister of God lay in 
a call and a qualification. The qualification in- 
volved a gift, a power, and a training. He who 
had a call from God, a gift from God, and a power 
from God, and he only, was ever Prophet, Evan- 
gelist, or Pastor and Teacher, in any Scriptural 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 201 


sense. The training varied with the age, dis- 
pensation, and circumstances; but no training ever 
did, or ever can, make him a Minister who has no 
call, no gifts, and no power sent upon his soul 
by the anointing of the eternal Spirit. 

The call presupposed grace, or the moral qualifi- 
cation, and implied a gift, or what may be called 
the mental qualification; for, to call without im- 
parting a gift, wquld be leading an unarmed 
soldier into battle; and to call and gift an un- 
regenerate man would be to commission and arm 
arebel: these two, therefore, call and qualifica- 
tion, can never be looked upon as _ separable. 
“The love of Christ constraineth us,” is the lan- 
guage in which the apostle expresses that which 
is essential in the internal working of a call from 
God to spend and to be spent for the salvation of 
men; and he who, thus constrained by the love 
of Christ, finds himself possessed of a gift to speak 
to edification, or exhortation, or comfort, has, in 
that motion, and in that faculty, strong evidence 
that the Lord is calling him into His vineyard. 
What he feels is not a mere desire to enter the 
ministry as a good and useful office, or to spend 
life in an honorable and happy vocation; but is 
a constraining movement of the love of Christ, as 
if issuing from His heart into the heart of His 
servant, and working there a strong impulse to 
ery out and labor for the recovery of Adam’s lost 


202 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


children to the favor of their God, and the rest 
of heaven. But, however strongly this desire 
may exist, if it be not accompanied with a oift 
for public teaching, that alone proves that the 
Lord has not designed the operation of His love 
to constrain this particular individual to the public 
labors of the ministry, but to other efforts for 
the same end. Him whom God sends to any 
work, He qualifies for that work, - 

A person feeling a true impulse to labor for 
Christ, and misjudging his own gift, may conceive 
himself to be called to the ministry when he is 
far from being qualified for it; and, on this point, 
the onus of judgment cannot properly be laid 
upon him, but must rest upon the Church. He, 
and he only, can judge as to the inward motive 
of his soul, whether or not his heart is moved by 
the Holy Ghost to undertake this work; and the 
fact that the responsibility of declaring that he 
believes himself to be so moved is thrown upon 
the candidate for the ministry by most Churches, 
if not by all, is a public and solemn testimony 
that the operation of the Holy Spirit in the heart 
is recognized as continuing to be the one basis 
of qualification for the ministry of the .Gospel. 
Only one’s own self can tell what has passed be- 
tween the soul and its Saviour. No stranger inter- 
meddleth with the question whether the Spirit 
has, or has not, in holy promptings moved one to 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 203 


consecrate his life to the sole work of edifying and 
multiplying the flock of Christ. If any come to 
offer his hand to the Church for this high service, 
on his own soul it lies to say whether or not he is 
led by an impulse from on high, or by ordinary 
professional motives. 

‘he Church, nevertheless, has her responsibility ; 
and before she seals the credentials of any, she is 
bound to take note whether the Lord Himself has 
sealed them by the gifts of His Holy Spirit. As 
much as the responsibility lies on the individual 
of making or not making a solemn profession that 
he is inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, so does 
the responsibility lie upon the Church to see that 
he has all the corroborative marks of such a call. 
Those marks are grace, gifts, fruit. Does his 
whole life testify that he has felt the repentance 
to which he is to call sinners, exercised the faith 
to which he is to encourage penitents, and ex- 
perienced, in some degree, that sanctification to 
which he is to lead on believers? If the evidence 
of this be not clear, the Church sins a grievous sin 
in accrediting him to the world as one qualified 
to “warn every man, and teach every man, that he 
may present every man perfect.” No circum- 
stance of time, age, nation, or aught else, can 
authorize any Church to dispense with the essen- 
tial qualification that he who is to be a Minister 
of God shall first be a child of God. Any cre- 

15 


204 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


dentials given without full proof of this are pre- 
sumptuous and null. When our Lord was about 
to restore to His beloved disciple, Peter, the com- 
mission which his fall had seemed to forfeit, He 
puts to him the question, “ Lovest thou Me?” and 
thrice repeats it, searching him to the soul; and, 
on the ground that he does love Him, intrusts him 
anew with the commission, “ Feed My sheep.” No 
man whose true love to the Saviour is doubtful, 
who cannot appeal to Him who knoweth all 
things as witness that he does love Him, has that 
qualification for a commission which is most in- 
dispensable of all—loyalty to the King. 

“The same commit thou to faithful men.” 
“Who is that farthful and wise steward whom the 
Lord will set over His house, to give to every man 
a portion of meat in due season?” In both of these 
passages, as all through the word of God,- the 
spiritual qualification is set as a consideration an- 
tecedent to that of gifts: first of all “faithful;”’ 
but not merely “faithful:” “The same commit 
thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach 
others also.” 'The steward is to be not only “ faith- 
ful,” but “wise,” able to distribute to every one in 
due season. He who is not apt to teach, ought 
never to be commissioned as a teacher. The gifts 
of the Spirit are various. “'To one is given the 
word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, 
to another prophecy.” With regard to the servants 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 205 


of the Lord Christ, according to the gift of each, 
so let his sphere be. If “prophecy, let him 
prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or 
teaching, let him wait on his teaching; or he that 
exhorteth, on exhortation.” 

When, therefore, any one comes forward to offer 
himself as a laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, 
before he can be rightly assigned to any sphere, 
the question as to his spiritual character must 
be favorably decided, and then his sphere should 
be determined by his gifts. Which of the various 
gifts of the Holy Spirit have been conferred upon 
him? If none of them, who dare say that he is 
to be a Minister of God, and a teacher of the souls 
of men? Surely this is not the Church of Christ, 
that is going to lay hands upon a man, of whom 
no one knows whether he has any gift whatever 
from God—a man whose voice has never been 
raised in exhortation, teaching, preaching, or 
public prayer, who has given no more evidence of 
cifts and fitness than a thousand others who make 
no pretension to be fit—going to set such a one 
over hundreds of professed Christians as their 
teacher and Pastor, as the leader of their devo- 
tions, and the only instructor of their souls. 

It is a manifest inversion of Christian order, 
when the commission of the Church is taken to 
be the authority to commence the exercise of 
spiritual gifts. In the New ‘Testament the 


206 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Church’s only warrant for issuing her commis- 
sion is the known possession of such gifts; and 
this can only be proved by their previous exercise. 
_ Her work was not to create gifts, but from among 
_ the gifted brethren to select those whom the Lord 
had, by His own will and act, previously fitted 
for special offices. The ordination of the Church 
to the ministry was not a Christian’s first author- 
ity to preach Christ; for that, opportunity and 
ability were authority enough; but the special 
eminence and usefulness of some among the 
company of preachers was the Church’s warrant 
for separating them to the sole work of the ministry. 
If a commission from the Church be held to sup- 
ply the place either of the Spirit’s constraining 
call, or of His qualifying gift, His office in per- 
petuating the ministry is superseded. To do this 
effectually, it is not necessary to blot from creeds 
the expressions of right belief, but only to adopt 
in practice such regulations as will enable men 
without grace, or without gifts, by the use of 
ordinary professional preparations, to obtain a 
commission, and stand up as accredited stewards 
of the mysteries of God. 

The operation of the Spirit in fitting the Min- 
ister for the work of God is seen in the Old Testa- 
ment, in connection, not with the priestly office, 
but with that of the Prophet. The former was 
a typical and temporary office, existing only as the 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 207 


precursor and type of the great High Priest, and 
terminating at once and forever when He whom 
it foreshadowed had made His offering, and 
passed within the veil. The work of the Priest 
was not to teach, edify, warn, and forewarn, but 
to be the medium of access to the presence of God 
on His mercy-seat. As such, he has no earthly 
successor in Christianity: his office, we repeat, 
ended forever with the atonement and ascension 
of our Lord. Then came a change of the Priest- 
hood, that of Levi giving place to that of Mel- 
chisedec, which was vested, not in a succession of 
mutable men, but all in the Unchanging One, 
whose sacrifice should never need repetition, whose 
years should never fail, and whose infinite tender- 
ness should feel every infirmity of every suppliant. 

The office of the Prophet was to warn, to re- 
prove, to rebuke, to exhort, as well as to foreshow. 
That office is not repeated in all its features in the 
Christian “ Pastor and Teacher,” but as to its es- 
sentials it is. Foretelling is the one function 
wherein the two differ; and that was appropriately 
the gift of an age in which revelation was incom- 
plete, and all the hopes of believers turned to 
alight yet unrisen. Indeed, it may be worth 
considering whether the perpetuation of the fore- 
telling gift would not suppose an incomplete 
revelation, and whether the closing of the canon 
of revealed truth does not naturally carry with it 


208 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the termination of that wonderful gift by which 
from age to age additions had been made to the 
previous stores of truth. 

When St. Paul urges upon us to desire, and, 
indeed, to follow after, the “spiritual gift” of 
prophecy, and holds out the inducement which 
should lead us to covet it above all other gifts, he 
has not in his eye, and does not present to ours, 
the honor or the profit of foretelling. The only 


inducements he assigns are these: “He that 
prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and 
exhortation, and comfort.” ‘I would that ye 


spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: 
for greater is he that prophesieth than he that 
speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that 
the Church may receive edifying. . . . But if all 
prophesy, and there come in one that believeth 
not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he 
is judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his 
heart made manifest; and so falling down on his 
face, he will worship God, and report that God is 
in you of a truth.” Thus, in the passages where 
the Apostle speaks most upon the Christian gift 
of prophecy, he makes no allusion to foretelling; 
and in the Acts of the Apostles we read that 
“ Judas and Silas, being Prophets also themselves, 
exhorted the brethren with many words, and con- 
firmed them.’”” We have no record anywhere of 
Silas foretelling, nor is there here the least allusion 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 209 


to the exercise of such a gift; yet his exhortation 
and that of Jude, with their confirming arguments 
or appeals, are at once set down as the exercise of 
the prophetic gift. 

The highest office of the Spirit in the Prophet 
of the old dispensation was to enable him to see 
and to depict “the sufferings of Christ, and the 
glory that should follow,” as though they were be- 
fore his eye; and the highest office of the same 
Spirit in God’s Minister, in our day, is to enable 
him to descry, by an inner eye, the glories and 
the grace of a Lord whom he has never seen; and 
to descant upon them as though his eye beheld 
Him, and his ear was tingling with His voice. 
The same spiritual light which made a future Re- 
deemer present to Isaiah, is needful to make a 
past Redeemer present to the Christian Preacher. 
Without it, the one might have an expectation, 
and the other might have a belief; but neither 
could burn and melt as in the presence of a living, 
loving, redeeming Prince of Peace. The spirit of 
prophecy illuminated the future to the one, and 
illuminates the past to the other—gave that which 
was a promise the force of a thing done, and gives 
that which is a record the force of a thing now 
doing. 

The difference, within the soul of a man, be- 
tween merely cherishing an expectation or a belief, 
and seeing, feeling, thrilling under the impres- 


210 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


sion of a present Friend and Deliverer, makes in 
his utterance the difference between a tame decla- 
ration which disturbs neither prejudice nor in- 
difference, and an overpowering force of speech 
that bears men’s hearts away. So far was the gift 
whereby the Spirit enabled the servants of Christ 
to speak as the oracles of God respecting the 
Master whom, though “not having seen, they 
loved,” from being considered essentially different 
from that wherewith He had endued the ancient 
Prophets, that the same name is freely applied to 
it, even when, as we have seen, the idea of fore- 
telling is not included. 

However decided might be the evidence that an 
individual was a child of God, and had a gift, 
another element is ever kept in view as an attes- 
tation that he is truly commissioned from the 
Father—the power and anointing of the Holy One 
transfused throughout his preaching, and giving 
it a moral effect which ordinary speech, however 
wise, would never carry. ‘‘Not in word only,” 
however true and Scriptural that word might be, 
“but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in 
much assurance.” “The kingdom of God is not 
in word, but in power.” “The preaching of the 
Cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto 
us who are saved it is the power of God.” “My 
speech and my preaching were not with enticing 
words of man’s wisdom, but with demonstration 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 911 


of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should 
not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power 
of God.” Here we see the most highly gifted of 
the Apostles clearly recognizing the fact, that his 
success as an ambassador to sinful men lay, not 
in the perfectness of his intellectual perceptions, 
nor in the mode in which he presented the truth 
to the intellectual view of those whom he addressed, 
but in a spiritual element of his preaching, as 
distinct from its intellectual characteristics as they 
were from its physical elocution, and as necessary, 
in addition to the intellectual presentation of 
truth, as it was in addition to a rush of words. 
Without clear inteliectual presentation of truth, 
any flow of words would fail to convince or to 
enlighten. Without the spiritual power, any ex- 
position or argument would fail to awaken or re- 
generate. The work of Paul was nothing short 
of a commission to “turn them from darkness to 
light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that 
they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an in- 
heritance among them that are sanctified;” and 
this he knew could never be effected except by 
“power and by the Holy Ghost,” working in and 
through whatever truth he might utter, as the 
bearer of God’s great message. 

Without this call from God, this gift from God, 
and this power from God, no one can be recognized 
as, in the Scriptural sense, an ambassador from 


212 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


God. ‘To dispense with any one of thege essen- 
tials in the qualification of a Minister, is to intro- 
duce a radical change into the institution of the 
ministry itself, and to set it up on a basis for which 
there is no Scriptural precedent. These essentials 
being secured, the training is varied according to 
circumstances. In the case of the Apostles and 
the Seventy, after our Lord had called them, under 
the promise that He would make them fishers of 
men, He retained them near His own person, con- 
tinually instructing them in the oracles of God, 
giving them the highest example of teaching and 
of a holy life; and this training he continued for 
three years. After the call of St. Paul, we find 
that three years elapsed before he came up to 
Jerusalem, which time he had spent in Arabia and 
Damascus, in what manner we are not informed, 
but probably in study of the Holy Scriptures, 
leading to a fuller acquaintance with the revela- 
tion of Godin Christ. It is certain, however, that 
he was also exercising his gifts: for even in 
Damascus, immediately after his conversion, he 
began to preach. The training of Apollos lay 
first in such light as he received as a disciple of 
John’s baptism, next in the exercise of his eifts, 
and then in the further instruction of Aquila and 
Priscilla. The training of Timothy lay in the 
early teaching of a holy mother and grandmother, 
the ordinary means of grace, study of the word of 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 213 


God, and then personal fellowship with the Apostle 
Paul and his fellow-laborers on their journeys and 
in their toils. Whatever special training indi- 
viduals may have been favored with, that which 
was essential in the training was common to all; 
namely, instruction in the Holy Scriptures, the 
exercise of their gifts in religious assemblies 
either of the Church or of the synagogue, and the 
gradual development of those gifts, until fitness 
for the ministry was clearly proved. 

Whatever value general education may have held 
in the eyes of our blessed Lord, or of the anoint- 
ing Spirit, it is plain that even the Apostles, in 
the height and glory of their Pentecostal preach- 
ing, were not gifted with any power which would 
cover the provincial peculiarities of their speech, 
or enable them to conciliate the refined by grace- 
ful enunciation. The educated ears of the Scribes 
of Jerusalem at once recognized, in the workers 
of miracles and the teachers of an increasing 
Church, “unlearned and ignorant men.” But, 
as we before noticed, their want of learning re- 
lated only to matters of polite education, not to 
the deep things of the word of God, the doctrines, 
facts, and promises of which they were commis- 
sioned to expound to the world. ‘The general 
education of Luke and Paul was gained with a 
view to general purposes, and turned to the service 
of the Church by the grace which converted them. 


214 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


We now come to the simple question, Are the 
call, the gift, the power, and the training of the 
Christian Minister to continue to the end of time, 
as to essentials, the same as in the apostolic age? 
Are we to expect identity, in these particulars, be- 
tween the ministry of our day, and that of the first 
century; or, dispensing with this, are we to be 
contented simply with a lineal connection? To 
put out of sight the Scriptural precedents and 
essentials of ministerial qualification, to give up the 
spiritual identity of the ministry, and be satisfied 
with a lineal connection, is a lamentable abandon- 
ment of the Church’s hope. If she do not obtain 
for the sacred office a succession of men able to 
teach, and endued with the Holy Ghost, she can- 
not preserve to herself, or transmit to future ages, 
the primitive and apostolic ministry. Though all 
the appendages of the office be preserved, if the 
spiritual essentials of the Minister be lost, the pith 
and sap of the ancient tree are gone, though the 
bark and foliage may survive. It is for the Church 
to see that unequivocal signs of grace, and gifts, 
and fruitfulness, mark out every candidate for the 
sacred office as one chosen of the Lord; and not 
to accept instead of these any substitute whatever, 
whether it be his own profession, or some qualifica- 
tions supposed to replace the primitive ones. 

Though no one formally professes that the 
Christian ministry has become a totally different 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 215 


institution from that which Christ founded— 
different in the qualification it requires, in the 
mode of induction, and in the source and fruit of 
its efficacy—yet all this is assumed in the current 
writings and thoughts of many, and the assump- 
tion is wrought into the framework and usages for 
different churches. For a call of God, delivered 
by the voice of the Holy Ghost, in the silence of a 
believing heart, and manifested by earnest efforts 
to save souls and to promote holy works, a formal 
commission from ecclesiastical authorities is relied 
upon. Instead of a gift from God—a gift of 
sacred and impressive speech, a “ tongue of fire’’— 
there is substituted a ritual; instead of a power 
from God, some substitute intellectualism, and 
others propriety. 

We are very far from decrying these things in 
their right place. The commission is good and 
needful as the Church’s seal and recognition of 
the Lord’s call, but ridiculous and _ self-contradic- 
tory, asa substituteforit. Learning is invaluable 
when associated with and adorning gifts from 
God, but lower than pitiable when offered as a 
substitute for the power of opening and enforcing 
the Divine oracles. Propriety, intellectualism, 
and ritual, have their honorable place; but when, 
instead of the power which penetrates the soul, 
we have only ceremony which fascinates the taste, 
or talent which regales the intellect, then are we 


216 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


fallen from the region of Divine to that of human 
things brought down from “the power of God” 
to “the wisdom of man.” 

For this substitution different classes are to be 
blamed: Church authorities, chiefly for covering 
the want of a call and a gift from God by a com- 
mission from man; and the multitude of professed 
Christians, chiefly for coveting not so much spirit- 
ual power, as propriety or intellectualism. Did 
the former adhere to the primitive idea of the 
ministry, they would no more commission, as a 
Minister of God, a man who had not given proof, 
first of sincere godliness, and then of ministerial 
gifts, than would any naval board accredit a man 
as a pilot who had studied navigation and charts, 
but had never sailed the particular channel on 
which he was to be entrusted with valuable lives; 
or than would any medical board give a surgeon’s 
diploma to a man who had read and heard lectures, 
but had never been in a hospital, or dealt with 
an actual patient. To substitute education for 
the ministerial gift (even when grace is possessed) 
is, in fact, to set aside the question, Is this man 
called of God? And to substitute it for evidences 
of grace (even when gifts are possessed) is equally 
to set that question aside. True, it may be still 
retained in words; but if that is done, and yet, 
without proof of both gifts and grace, a man be 
inducted into the ministry upon the simple evi- 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH DL? 


dence of education, the question is deliberately 
evaded, and the sin of falsifying Christ’s own in- 
stitution is not mitigated by the plea of forget- 
fulness, much less of ignorance; but, with both 
knowledge and memory of what it originally was, 
another thing, differing from it in the first and 
most essential qualities, is hailed by its name, and 
invested with its functions. 

To constitute a Christian, three things are 
necessary—faith, experience, and practice: to 
constitute a Minister, four—faith, experience, 
practice, and gifts. Without experience, knowl- 
edge or belief can no more qualify a man to teach 
heart repentance, and heart faith, and heart holi- 
ness, than book knowledge, whatever might be 
its amount, would qualify a man to train soldiers, 
if he had never himself passed through the pro- 
cess of military discipline. Without gifts, edu- 
cation and experience would be together as insuffi- 
cient a qualification, as if a soldier had ammuni- 
tion and discipline without weapons. 

It is difficult to describe the evil done, when 
the Church overlays the essential qualification and 
training of the primitive ministry by exalting 
substitutes for the active power of the Holy Spirit, 
and when she further sets before all men a pro- 
fession with high prizes, the door to which will 
infallibly be opened by a certain course of educa- 
tion, unless they disgrace themselves, and thus 


218 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


allures them to make sacred professions from 
secular motives. On each individual who makes 
such professions without due care, the guilt of 
voluntarily sinning must forever lie; but how far 
has the Church been his tempter, when she makes 
overtures to him irrespective of qualifications 
which are clearly laid down in the word of God, 
as those which alone attest the Divine sanction 
and call? 

It may be asked whether we are to expect that 
in all ages a sufficient number of men will be 
raised up, bearing the primitive marks of a call 
from God, and of gifts from God; and our reply 
would be simply REMEMBER THE TEN DAYS. There 
we see men whose commission had come from the 
lips of the Lord Jesus, whose training had been 
under His own eye, who have forsaken houses, and 
lands, and all that could bind them to secular 
avocations, who are ready to set forth upon the 
work of calling and warning a world that is “ly- 
ing in the wicked one;” and yet day after day 
the inhibition les upon them, that they are to 
tarry until they are endued with power from on 
high. As we look at that spectacle—sinners dy- 
ing, time rolling on, the Master looking down 
from His newly ascended throne on the world which 
He has redeemed, seeing death bear away its thou- 
sands while His servants keep silence—there ig in 
that silence a tone which booms through all the fu- 


—_ 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 219 


ture, warning us that never, never, under the dis- 
pensation of the Spirit, are men to set out upon the 
embassy of Christ, be their qualifications or cre- 
dentials what they may, until first they have been 
endued with power from on high, been baptized 
with tongues of fire. Better let the Church wait 
ever so long—better let the ordinances of God’s 
house be without perfunctory actors, and all, feel- 
ing sore need, be forced to cry with special urgency 
for fresh outpourings and baptisms of the Holy 
Ghost, to raise up holy Ministers, than that, by 
any manner of factitious supply, substitutes should 
be furnished—substitutes no more Ministers of 
God, than coals arranged in a grate are a fire; or 
than a golden candlestick, with a wax candle 
which flame has never touched, is a light. 

If it was the original design of the Lord to with- 
draw from the Church the ministerial grace of the 
Spirit, and to leave her to the care of Pastors, all 
whose qualifications were natural, or gained by 
natural acquisition, all whose authority was de- 
rived from human commission without any “ mani- 
festations of the Spirit,” either in gifts or moral 
power; it was clearly His purpose that His religion 
should essentially change its character, after its 
establishment in the world. This change also 
would be not in the direction of improvement, 
but of degeneracy; not by progressive increase of 


communication with His redeemed flock, but by 
16 


220 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


progressive increase of distance between it and 
Him; not by bringing earthly things nearer to 
heavenly, but by removing them farther away. It 
would imply a design, on His part, to reduce the 
Christian dispensation lower, as to ministerial 
grace, than even the Jewish: for in it the prophetic 
spirit was constantly giving manifestation that 
there was a God in Israel; not merely that there 
was truth, order, priesthood, a Church, but a 
Gop, a living Being, high, holy, and wise, who 
dwelt amid the people, and actively moved, 
through His servants, for the instruction, reproof, 
and holiness of all;—“rising up early, and send- 
ing” messenger after messenger. It would, in 
fact, imply, that while the dispensation of the 
Gospel was the most favored as to truth, it would 
be the least favored as to tokens of actual inter- 
course between the Saviour and His people: for 
even the days of the Patriarchs were lighted with 
frequent manifestations of God. It is laid down 
as the principle of our dispensation, that the 
manifestations of God are to be by the operation 
and gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is, therefore, 
consistent Christianity to expect no supernatural 
manifestations but of this kind. But is it consis- 


tent Christianity, or Christianity of any kind, : 


not to expect these at all; not to count upon direct 
gifts from above, upon such wonderful working 
of the Spirit through the mind and tongue of 


wae ‘e 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 221 


messengers, as would compel all to feel that their 
endowments were not from nature only, but were 
indicative of Divine power? 

If it be not alleged that the Lord did indeed 
mean to withdraw ministerial grace, in every ap- 
preciable and practical form; on what other 
ground can the notion that the ministry is to be 
supplied by candidates, just as any other profession 
is supplied, be rested? that all that is necessary 
is, that fathers should decide that their sons are 
to be Ministers, and not soldiers or lawyers; and 
should educate them; that then, after an examina- 
tion in general knowledge and theology, the 
candidate shall be invested with an office which 
professes to be held by commission from God? 
On what other ground can one avoid the conclu- 
sion, that the first movement toward placing any 
one in the ministry should result from proof given 
that the Holy Spirit had endued him with pastoral 
dispositions and pastoral gifts; and that every sub- 
sequent step in the same direction should be taken 
carefully, after confirmatory evidences of the 
same? 

It is easy to say, that we must not expect such 
clear cases to occur constantly; and must follow 
some definite mode of preparation. Yes, we must 
follow some definite mode; but defined on prin- 
ciples of faith, not of unbelief. “ We must not 
expect a constant occurrence of clear cases.”” On 


222 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


what principles must we not? On those of the 
New Testament, or of modern writers? On those 
of the Church in the apostolic age, or of subse- 
_ quent and degenerate ages? -On those of Christ’s 
uncorrupted Christianity, or those of fallen 
Churches? On the principle of “I BELIEVE IN 
THE Hoty Guost,” or on the principle of “I be- 
lieve only in nature? ”’ 

The definite mode of perpetuating the supply 
of Ministers should rest on the sole foundation of 
the Christian faith, rejecting every idea of dis- 
trust as resolutely as a chemist would reject every 
idea of inconstancy in the affinities of elements; 
rejecting every idea of substituting other action for 
that of the Holy Spirit as decisively as a gunner 
would reject the idea of aiding his explosion with 
mechanical force. If we have not the Spirit to 
raise up agents, we cannot preserve Christ’s Church 
alive; if we have Him, we may fully trust Him to 
do all that is not made to depend on our own 
fidelity. To doubt the supply of summer heat, 
and to set ourselves to rear harvests in hot-beds, 
would not be doing more violence to the laws of 
the physical kingdom, than it is to the laws of the 
spiritual kingdom to doubt the supply of the 
Spirit whereby laborers fit for the field are raised 
up, and to set ourselves to furnish others. 

Firm in faith, the Church ought to set at the 
very entrance of the pathway toward the ministry, 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 293 


a gate, which no family influence, no education, 
could open; which none could pass but they whom 
a number of serious and godly men—not Ministers 
alone, but also laymen who had to hear, and feed, 
or starve, according to the quality of the ministra- 
tions—would deliberately conclude were worthy, 
at least, to be admitted to probation for the work 
of the ministry. Such a gate none could pass but 
one who was either in earnest, or a studious and 
practiced hypocrite. 

Where the primitive training is maintained, all 
the members of the Church exercise such gifts as 
the Spirit has distributed to them—prayer, and 
exhortation, and teaching, and mutual speaking 
one to another, and admonishing one another. 
Among the working believers of such a scriptural 
Church, a suitable proportion will ever be raised 
up whose gifts will fit them to lead in all offices. 
This is the real training-school for Christian 
agents; a fruitful Church is her own nursery. 
Meetings for fellowship of saints, for free-hearted 
prayer, for exhortation, are the legitimate means 
by which they whom the Lord is fitting for His 
high ministry shall be led to the development of 
their gifts. This trainmg must be held as indis- 
pensable, and of an essential importance with which 
no other training has any pretence to claim a 
comparison; and then general education must be 
held to have the same relation to the Christian 


224 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ministry as general education has to any other 
profession; and theological education the same as 
special education has to the other professions. 

Classics and mathematics, history and logic, are 
of admirable-use to a lawyer; but if, qualified by 
these, he is to attempt to conduct cases without 
having been specially trained in pleading, alas for 
his clients. They are of great use to a physician ; 
but if by their light, and without study of diseases 
and remedies, he undertake to heal, alas for the 
families which put precious life in his trust. To 
a Minister their value is quite as great ag to either 
of the others; but study of theology is as indis- 
pensable to him, as study of law or medicine to 
them; and practical experience of that repentance, 
faith, and holiness, which he is to enforce, 1s as 
necessary as practical treatment of disease in ad- 
dition to study; or as practical acquaintance with 
a ship at sea is needful for a mariner, in addition 
to the science of navigation. 

Were we forced to choose between two men, one 
of whom is an accomplished scholar without prac- 
tical godliness, the other a holy and gifted man 
without refined scholarship; to ask us the ques- 
tion, which we should prefer for our Minister, is 
about as respectful to our faith as Christians, as 
it would be respectful to the common sense of a 
ship-owner, soberly to ask whether he preferred, 
as a pilot for his ships, a scholar from a nautical 


ee 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH ons 


academy who had never walked a deck, or a rough 
sailor who had often sailed the very waters over 
which the precious freight must be conveyed. 
Alas for those whose souls are watched over by un- 
converted scholars. And even if converted and 
gifted, the Minister of Christ should not come to 
his office without having been practiced in prayer, 
in exhortation, in preaching, in all the art of 
healing souls, and that not in books only, not in 
schools only, but also in the lively meetings and 
labors of the Church. 

We not only acknowledge, but gratefully be- 
lieve and record, that many of those who had been 
invested with the ministry without sufficient test of 
their fitness, have, in the event, become burning 
and shining lights. But if this, on the one hand, 
deserves to be continually remembered as a proof 
of God’s tender mercy to His Church, it is, on the 
other hand, not less to be noted, that He has ordi- 
narily allowed such unauthorized appointments to 
be followed by their natural consequences, until 
whole nations have come under the curse of a 
ministry who either taught another Gospel than 
that of the Apostles, or who, perfunctorily exhibit- 
ing the shell of the truth, set the example of deny- 
ing its power; and that even where the Church 
had been reformed, although primitive Chris- 
tianity had not been generally revived. What 
England was a century ago—what many Protestant 


226 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Churches on the Continent are at this moment, 
sufficiently shows that if guards are not placed 
at the entrance to the ministry, such as will hin- 
der the admission of any but spiritually-minded 
men, the course of Providence is to allow the sin 
to work out its own punishment. 


VII.—Ministers Robed “with Power from on High.” 


While ecclesiastical authorities may be justly 
blamed for too readily substituting a Church com- 
mission for the genuine call and gift of God, the 
multitude of professed Christians are no less ready 
to accept, instead of the genuine moral power 
which is the true pre-eminence of the Christian 
Minister, a substitute in either propriety or intel- 
lectualism. A people whose idea of the ministry 
was formed by inspirations from the New Testa- 
ment, would look and crave, with feelings amount- 
ing to hunger and thirst, for men “endued with 
power "—the true power of the Holy Ghost, awak- 
ening, converting, edifying power; power under 
which hearts would melt, lives would change, old 
men would put off the evil ways of a lifetime, and 
youth put on the wisdom of gray hairs, thought- 
less revelry would give place to benevolent associa- 
tions, and the whole neighborhood would begin to 
breathe a purer, nobler spirit. N othing could to 
them compensate for the absence of this. Though 
all proprieties gratified the taste, though the in- 


a i Bai tds 


ee oe ee 


ae) a eee ee 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH oy 


tellect were charmed, yet would they pine and long 
for that power which hes beyond the ken of the 
eye, the taste, or the intellect; but which the 
moral nature at once feels and responds to, either 
by a stern moral resistance, felt to be a resistance 
to the voice of the Spirit, or by contrite acquies- 
cence, felt to be the surrender of the heart to the 
constraining love of the Redeemer. 

“Ye shall be endued,” said our Lord, “ with 
power from on high”—robed with power. This 
is the true robing and vestment of the Minister 
of God—an invisible garment of power, which 
sits not upon his shoulders, but upon his spirit, 
shading him over with a moral dignity, as if he 
held office from the King of kings, and conveying 
to every conscience before him the instinctive 
perception that he comes commissioned to deal 
with 7 on the things that effect its purity, and 
its relations with Him who planted it in man. 

All power is indescribable, but at the same time 
appreciable. What itis, where it is, how it came, 
where it goes, its measure, movement, nature, 
form, or essence, no human skill can discover. 
We may ask the sunbeam which has such power 
to fly and to illuminate, the lightning which has 
such power to scathe, the dew-drop that has such 
power to refresh, the magnet, the fire, the steam, 
the eye that can see, the ear that can hear, the 
nerve that can convey the messages of will—we 


228 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


may ask all the agents we see exerting power to 
render us an account each of its own power, and 
all will be dumb. Not the cannon-ball on its 
flight, or the lion in his triumph, not the tempest 
or the sea, not even pestilence itself, can tell us 
what is power. If we ask Death who has put all 
things under his feet, even he has no reply; and 
after we have passed the question, “ What is 
power?”’ round a mute universe, we must say 
“God has spoken once, yea, twice have I heard 
this, that POWER BELONGETH UNTO Gop.” 

Yet power, in itself so hidden and indescribable, 
is ever manifest by its effects. An effect demon- 
strates the presence of a power. Where gun- 
powder explodes, there must have been fire; where 
water shoots up through the atmosphere in steam, 
there must have been heat; where iron moves 
without mechanical force, a magnet must be; 
and the absence of the effect is conclusive evi- 
dence of the absence of the power from which the 
effect would have followed. The intellect at 
once recognizes the presence of intellectual 
power. The emotions, also, faithfully tell when- 
ever an emotional power is brought to bear upon 
them; and no less surely does the conscience of a 
man feel when a moral power comes acting upon 
it. 

In unconverted men a singular conflict goes on: 
they share the admiration which every man feels 


Se ee eS, en 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 229 


for moral power—an admiration which none can 
help feeling, even though he be so wedded to his 
sins, that he is lashed into enmity when the action 
of such a power makes him fear that, after all, he 
will be converted into a saint; yet this feeling is 
combated by the natural aversion which men have 
for everything that crosses their earthly inclina- 
tions, and tends to lead their affections to holy 
things. On the one hand, they feel that the man 
who preaches to them ought to be able to disturb 
them in their evil ways, as by a voice and a call 
from their Maker; and they are drawn toward 
him who has this character. On the other hand, 
they desire to continue longer in worldly ways; 
and it is comfortable to them, and welcome when, 
instead of a trumpet peal which would break their 
slumbers, they hear a pleasant song that will help 
them to sleep on. With the great majority these 
latter feelings prevail, and according as their own 
inclinations and training lead, they seek in the 
public ordinances of God’s house either what they 
call an intellectual -treat, or what they consider a 
well-performed and creditable solemnity. 

With one class, the highest ideal of a Christian 
service seems to be, that nothing should pass that 
could, by any possibility, offend the taste of any 
human being who might look upon the whole 
scene as an assembly for some dignified purpose. 
As to the pulpit, their great desire is, that the 


230 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


’ 


pulpit should “ behave itself; ’’ and in this country 
of ours many a service may be found which is— 


“Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.” 


That is, “faultless” in such eyes—“ faultless,” if 
the idea of a Christian service be not a scene of 
penitence, fervent prayer, bursting adoration; a 
triumph of spiritual power; an assembly the at- 
mosphere of which breathes of living souls and the 
present Spirit of God, of transgressors awakening, 
and penitents finding mercy, and saints standing 
truly nigh to the countenance of their Father; 
but, instead of all this, a number of well-dressed 
people decorously meeting, and celebrating some- 
thing that affects no one, and coolly listening to 
something not formed to affect any one, and above 
all not formed to offend any man, except him who 
wants to feel his own soul, and see the souls of 
his neighbors, moved.to their depths as by a call 
from above. 

The sanctuary of God ought, undoubtedly, to 
be the highest scene and model of propriety; the 
pulpit to be its foremost and most shining example. 
He who, under any pretext, introduces trifling, 
oddity, or coarseness there, strikes fearfully at a 
main support of power—true reverence. However 
offensive want of propriety may be elsewhere, it is 
doubly so in the house of God. But the united 
praying of Christians, the delivering of a message 


—— 


~—a oe eee ee ee ee ee ee Se 


—— 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 931 


from above, and the mingling of thankful voices 
in praise to the Most High, like all other peculiar 
actions, have a propriety of their own; and of all 
improprieties, none is more thoroughly alien to 
them than that, be it what it may—whether stiff 
form or elaborate literature—which gives to the 
place a savor rather of the wisdom of man than 
of the power of God. At a marriage feast the 
solemnity proper to a funeral would be an impro- 
priety. In a company of friends the precision of 
military movement would be improper. The 
noise of instruments is propriety in a concert, the 
sound of grinding in a mill, the clatter of shuttles 
in a factory, the ring of hammers in a forge, the 
laughter of children in a nursery. 

And so the house of God has its own atmo- 
sphere: whatever would extinguish the reverent 
utterance of penitent or grateful emotion on the 
part of the simple and the poor, of the newly 
awakened or newly forgiven—whatever would 
train all Christian feelings to move there, in God’s 
own house and in the assembly of His people, as 
if under the cold eye of a heathen world, is a 
more crying impropriety than those departures 
from taste which not only might flow, but must 
flow, from the utterance of feelings, where any 
multitude, composed of all classes, is deeply 
affected. When the noble idea of Christian 
propriety gives place to the paltry idea of proper- 


232 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


hess—when intense reverence and love and joy, 
meeting and stirring the breasts of a multitude, 
are distasted, and men are set on having every- 
thing square, well cut, and arranged beforehand, 
then we have little right to expect the highest of 
all proprieties—the breaking of sinful hearts as 
if in pieces under the hammer of God’s word, and 
the cry of awakened sinners, “ What must we do 
to be saved?” In fact, many who call themselves 
Christians, and whose claim we readily allow, 
would regard the utterance of such acry in the 
house of God as not less improper than if raised 
in a theatre. The people may say, “ Amen,” if it 
be just by rule; may murmur response, if just 
where good men, long since dead, marked, “ Re- 
spond here;” but anything like the Pentecostal 
scene—any general outburst of penitent emotion— 
would be intolerable; and even to see a solitary 
man, “unlearned and unbelieving,” feeling him- 
self judged and condemned, and, “falling down 
upon his face and worshipping God,” would be a 
disturbance of propriety, forsooth, because it would 
make a fracture in that icy properness wherein a 
long continuance of cold has encased many a 
branch of Christ’s Church. Yet this scene is just 
as proper to the house of God, as the crash of a 
falling tree is to the forest where the woodman is 
clearing. 

A class very different from those who worship 


sie, _—, — 


ee ee ee 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 233 


properness, set up intellectualism as the substitute 
for power. ' We are far from wishing, in any way, 
to undervalue that great gift of God, mental 
vigor. Some measure of this is always implied in 
the commission to preach the Gospel; and the 
more of sense, pathos, imagination, of any real 
talent, a Minister may possess, the more is he 
fitted to give effect to his office. <The talk in 
which some good people indulge as to the great 
benefit of having weak instruments in the ministry, 
is without a tittle of Scriptural foundation, the 
Scriptures being fairly applied to the case. 

It is true that, to the wise of this world, the 
Cross in itself is “foolishness;”” but Christ never 
sent fools to be its heralds. The institution of 
preaching, as the means for regenerating man- 
kind, is in itself “foolishness;” but none of the 
preachers sent of God were simpletons. Though 
they were despised by the great, and were of no 
account with the learned, every one of them was 
mighty through God to strike home to the con- 
sciences of sinners, and to confound gainsayers; 
the evidence of Divine power working with them 
being all the more conspicuous by reason of their 
natural or educational defects. Men who have no 
gift to teach, warn, or exhort, ought to betake 
themselves to whatever honest calling their Maker 
has fitted them to fulfil, and not pule about the 
Lord delighting to use foolish instruments, while 


234 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


every day proves that He is in no way using them, 
unless it be as an example to all not to assume an 
office without having proved their fitness. The 
men whom God sends may be without the accom- 
plishments of scholars, but never without sense 
and utterance. They may be destitute of the 
talent which would enable them to treat secular 
subjects with oratorical or literary success—to al- 
lure the fancy, or exhilarate the emotions, to 
satisfy by logic, or illuminate by exposition, but 
never, never without power to act upon the con- 
science; and this, in the absence of other endow- 
ments, is often at once the sceptre of a preacher’s 
command, and the mysterious seal of his commis- 
sion. \ 

He who speaks to us in the name of our God 
may bring statement as lucid and nervous as that 
of Moses or Matthew, wisdom as racy as that of 
Solomon, pathos as overwhelming as that of Jere- 
miah or John, argument as cogent as that of Paul, 
or imagination as gorgeous as that of David or 
Isaiah; any powers, however lofty, may he bring— 
any eloquence, however poetic, refined, or bold; 
only let him make us feel, as we always do under 
the hand of the Prophets and the Apostles, that 
all his powers are put in operation but to bring 
us nearer to our Redeemer. 

Where the notion that the talent employed in 
Christian preaching ought to lie within a limited 


ee a ee. ee ee ee 


Re 


. 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 2935 


and humble range, without any high flights, any 
deep soundings, any glowing language, any meta- 
phorical illustrations, or any masculine argument, 
can have originated, one would be at a loss to learn, 
were the Bible alone—Old Testament and New— 
the source of our information. There we see the 
power of the Holy Spirit, not allying itself with 
one order of mind, or with one stamp of composi- 
tion, tamed down to a standard of properness, 
consecrated by the esthetics of some small and 
proper men, but using every faculty that God ever 
gave to the human soul—every faculty of thought, 
illustration, and speech—hallowing by its fire all 
genius, all life, and all nature, touching every- 
thing and illuminating everything; so that there 
is not one scene of domestic life, and not one ob- 
ject of God’s outer world, to which the tongue of 
Psalmist or Prophet, or the Great Teacher Him- 
self, has not given a voice, and made it speak to 
us in sacred poetry. From the grass beneath the 
mower’s scythe, or the lily that a child has 
plucked—from the bridegroom’s beaming face, or 
the nursing mother’s bosom—up to the lightning, 
the sun, and the stars, everything is hallowed by 
a ray from the Bible, and is hung round by its 
sacred associations. 

We cannot but believe that this is the inten- 
tional model, and that men of all orders, with 
talent of every possible shade, are meant to be 

l 


236 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


employed in God’s holy ministry; and that, there- 
fore, any narrower view, founded either upon the 
ideal of some prominent example in one class of 
preaching, on the taste of a given age, or on any 
notion whatever of classic style and propriety, is 
but an invention to cramp and trammel that which 
must everlastingly be free—the utterance of men 
who come to speak to us of all things infinite. 

On the other hand, that which nowadays is 
called intellectualism does not appear so much to 
lie in the possession and exercise of superior powers, 
as in the art of casting common things in elabo- 
rate moulds, and robing every familiar truth, 
which, in a plain garb, all would recognize as an 
old friend, in such array that those who do not 
look closely may take it for a distinguished stranger. 
It is true that thoughts which outgrow the ordi- 
nary stature will naturally drape themselves nobly ; 
but all haze, or extravagance, in the style of wise 
men, will be in spite of themselves. They will 
ever use their best endeavors, first to clear their 
ideas in their own minds, and then to render them 
clear to others. Often they will expend much 
labor in reducing what gushed from their preg- 
nant thoughts, from its original splendor to some- 
thing more simple and perspicuous, something 
perhaps less calculated to dazzle, but more caleu- 
lated to enlighten. 

Some intellects are among ordinary ones what a 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH yay 


hot-house is in a garden—a special shrine which 
receives the beams of heaven, through a medium 
of crystal, into an atmosphere of high tempera- 
ture, within which bloom fruits and flowers that 
would not grow in the ordinary ground; fruits 
and flowers from brighter lands, and wondrous in 
our eyes; which, however, though at first nursed 
there, may, in time, be naturalized, and become 
familiar beauties in the homesteads of thousands. 
It is manifestly the will of Providence to create 
such intellects; and even had we not the Bible to 
throw light on His design, it would certainly seem 
violently improbable that He should create them 
only to fringe with flowers the world’s broad and 
downward way. Some men always treat richness 
of style as if it were the result of effort; just as if 
deal, which always’ owes its color to art, were to 
say to mahogany, or maple, or rosewood, “ What 
labor it must have been to produce all these shad- 
ings.” No labor whatever; it is all in the grain. 

At the same time the intellectualism of our day 
is something so entirely apart from the exercise of 
power of mind, that it seems to us more like an 
attempt to invent great intellects, than like an 
honest endeavor to put out to the best account 
such intellect as God has given. The use of fac- 
titious power is to make common things loom up 
in misty grandeur, and the use of real power is to 
make strong, new, rare, or vast conceptions clear 


238 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


to the ordinary eye, or to bring what appeared 
cold intellectual abstractions home to the common 
heart. If viewed only as a specimen of natural 
power, how wonderful the effect of that one stroke 
by which the simplest man in Christendom, from 
the time of our Lord down to this day, has been 
enabled to see in the fair drapery of a lily a pledge 
of providential care for his clothing, and to hear, 
in the glee-chirp of a sparrow, a pledge of the 
same care in feeding him and _ his children. 
Whatever is used with a view to clear Divine truth 
to men’s conceptions, to enforce Divine law on 
the conscience, or to commend Divine love to their 
hearts, that will the Spirit work with and quicken; 
but whatever is used merely to excite surprise or 
admiration at the powers of the speaker, must be 
forsaken by that sacred Power which moves, never 
to glorify one man in the eye of another, but to 
reveal the things of God to His wandering crea- 
tures. 

It is very probable that not a few deceive them- 
selves by Burke’s idea of sublimity, to the effect 
that a clear idea is but another name for a little 
idea; a notion which he supports by quoting the 
vision of Eliphaz, and ascribing the sense of the 
sublime which that description at once conveys, 
to the haze and mystery wherewith the subject is 
invested. But he loses sight of the cardinal fact, 
that the mystery lies not in the medium, but in 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 239 


the object. In language clear as the light of 
heaven, that object is presented to the mind; and, 
gazing through that pure and illuminated medium, 
we see what can be seen of the object. ‘That is 
only enough to tell us that it is no ordinary thing, 
but some mysterious being, an index of a whole 
world of invisible spirits: and this it is which 
carries with it the idea of the awful and the in- 
finite, and, therefore, of the sublime. Had he 
said that complete comprehension in our mind ar- 
gued a finite object, he would undoubtedly have 
been correct; but, in order that our impression of 
the infinity of an object may be deep, some token 
of infinity must be clear. 

Let those, then, who would wield a power over 
us present to our minds objects so great, if they 
will, that we can only catch a glimpse of some 
lower or hinder part, but let that glimpse be such 
as to convey to us an intimation of the whole as 
clearly as any stray flash of morning light carries 
with it the whole idea of sun and sky. Let their 
great thoughts be robed in any language, however 
simple, or however gorgeous, provided only that 
it be clear, that the medium obscure not our view 
of the object to be seen, and so confuse our sense 
either of its nature or dimensions; and provided 
also it be plain, that their ruling idea is not a 
literary but a religious one, not to “acquit them- 
selves well,” and please their audience, but to pro- 


240 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


- duce instant and lasting religious impressions. 
Let them bring before our souls the heights, the 
depths, the lengths, the breadths of God’s revealed 
glories; and, whether they be plain in style as the 
homeliest peasant who passes our door, without 
one poetic idea in his mind, or one poetic phrase 
in his vocabulary, except those that his Bible has 
given to him—and many such plain men will ever 
be employed in the most eminent and glorious 
works of God—or whether all their expressions 
have the glow and superhuman fervor, or the 
lustre of superhuman imagination, rivalling, in 
its wealth of imagery, in its purple, its scarlet, its 
gold, its precious stones, its frankincense, and 
its myrrh, the Prophets of old, they will produce 
upon us healthy effects, will feed our spirits with 
angels’ food, or enamor our contemplations with 
God’s providence, His work of grace, or His eter- 
nal mansions provided for those who love Him. 
We repeat it, that it is not from any peculiar 
style, whether it be extreme plainness, or high 
elaboration, or what else, that we expect the min- 


istry to acquire a world-renewing power. Let the 


style be ruled by every man’s natural endowments; 
but, whatever these be, let them all be employed 
in the one direction of carrying out an embassy 
from God to the souls of sinful men. The greater 
the variety of talent and of style, the more will 
the pulpit be like the Bible—the more effectually 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 94] 


will its work be done; but let no form of talent be 
ever accepted instead of power. For we must have 
power—power which the godly will welcome, as 
meet to minister grace to the hearers—power 
which the ungodly will fear, as certain to make 
them uncomfortable in their sins, or else force 
them to harden their hearts, as if they were refus- 
ing the voice of God. 

Take away from the Minister spiritual power, 
and, though you give us the fairest deportment, 
the richest eloquence, the most subtle and fasci- 
nating speculation, you leave us without any sense 
that we are hearkening to a man of God. Did 
the multitudes of the Christian Church only set a 
due estimate upon this, and rank propriety and 
intellectualism in their proper place, the idea that 
aman could pass creditably as a Minister merely 
by carefully performing a ceremony, or by weaving 
webs of curious and cunning language, would be 
as far from men’s minds as is now the idea that 
one can obtain credit as a soldier without courage, 
as a painter without skill of hand, or as a musician 
without an instinct of tune. 

The lowest effect (for less is no effect at all, or 
a negative one) which a Christian Minister can 
produce, is merely to please his audience; next to 
that ranks astonishing them: for both of these 
effects terminate in himself; and when a certain 
amount of admiration has been expended upon 


242 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


him, the whole harvest of his labor is reaped—a 
poor and scanty harvest, suflicing only to pass 
over the present hour, but yielding no seed for 
future sowing, no store for time to come. The 
creature who covets and earns the reward of being 
counted “an acceptable Preacher ’’—a miserable 
praise, fit only for an impotent and soulless dis- 
courser—but shakes no sinner’s heart, brings back 
to no father’s arms a prodigal son, cheers no 
mother’s soul by the conversion of her children, 
nor ever makes a believer feel that his preaching 
has formed a new and happy era in his spiritual 
life, may spin fine paragraphs for the winding- 
sheet of souls that are dying under his hands; 
may perform over dead souls the solemnities of 
“ Christian burial;” but when the body dies too, 
and then when the trumpet sounds, and the graves 
are opened, what reward will crown his resurrec- 
tion? 

As no variety of talent is effectual for the ends 
of the ministry without spiritual power, so, when 
accompanied by that power, every form of talent 
is. The refined are ready to demand a certain 
chastened style, in which, above all things, there 
shall be no extravagance, either in composition or 
in delivery. On the other hand, the poor are slow 
to recognize power unless it be accompanied by 
strength of voice and physical vehemence. Some 
will admit of little value in what is only exhorta- 


a ne 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 243 


tional or declamatory; others, again, cannot im- 
agine that close argument, though it may en- 
lighten, shall ever awaken or convert: and thus 
most persons are in danger of forming a narrow 
ideal circle, within which they would have the 
Spirit to co-operate with the agency of man. 

We are often told with great earnestness what is 
the best style for preaching; but the fact is, that 
what would be the very best style for one man, 
would perhaps be the worst possible for another. 
In the most fervid declamation, the deepest prin- 
ciples may be stated and pressed home; in the 
calmest and most logical reasoning, powerful 
motives may be forced close upon the feelings; in 
discussing some general principle, precious por- 
tions of the text of Scripture may be elucidated; 
and in simple exposition, general principles may 
be effectually set forth. Let but the powers given 
to any man play with their full force, aided by 
all the stores of Divine knowledge which continu- 
ous acquisitions from its fountain and its purest 
channels can obtain for him, and, the fire being 
present—the fire of the Spirit’s power and influ- 
ence—spiritual effects will result. 

The discussion about style amounts very much 
to a discussion whether the rifle, the carbine, the 
pistol, or the cannon, is the best weapon. Each 
is best in its place. The great point is, that 
every one shall use the weapon best suited to him, 


244 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


that he charge it well, and see that it is in a 
condition to strike fire. The criticisms which 
we often hear amount to this: We admit that 
such-an-one is a good exhortational preacher, or 
a good doctrinal preacher, or a good practical 
preacher, or a good expository preacher; but be- 
cause he has not the qualities of another—quali- 
ties, perhaps, the very opposite of his own—we 
think lightly of him. That is, we admit that the 
carbine is a good carbine; but because it is not a 
rifle, we condemn it; and because the rifle is not 
a@ cannon, we condemn it. 

Nothing can more directly tend to waste of 
power, than the attempt to divert the mind from 
its natural course of action into one for which it 
is unfitted. Instead of resorting to this with the 
idea of forming all after some preconceived model, 
it would be better to teach all to recognize in the 
variety of individual character another proof of 
the manifold wisdom of God. 

Sometimes it is remarkable how small an amount 
of intellectual or literary power is combined 
with considerable, or even commanding, spiritual 
power. A man who by natural talent would im- 
press an audience less than most men, yet by the 
superior unction of the Spirit may produce relig- 
ious impressions, and raise up religious fruit, such 
as wiser and greater men might envy. Possessing 
this, his other defects are of comparatively little 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 245 


importance. A general may have many defects 
in his character, temper, and habits, without losing 
command over his men; but if his defects be un- 
soldierly—if, above all, he lacks courage, then in- 
evitably does his control over them decline. Soa 
statesman may have a thousand defects not directly 
affecting statesmanship, and yet retain his ascend- 
ency over the mind of the nation; but let him 
show a lack of political sagacity, and at once his 
ascendency is gone. So ifa Minister of the Gospel 
be justly described as “dry;” that is, if he give 
godly and candid hearers the impression that he 
habitually delivers Divine truths without any unc- 
tion which either moves his own soul, or those of 
others, the fault is fatal. It is what cowardice is 
in a soldier, folly in a statesman, or lameness in a 
runner. The hold of such an one upon the con- 
science must hopelessly pass away. Rather let us 
have the man of humblest talent or of plainest 
education, who can speak to us a word at which 
the soul within us thrills, than one who possesses 
no such power, though he can wrestle with every 
prejudice, or excite and fascinate every faculty. 
The power of which we speak being neither 
more nor less than the co-operation of the Holy 
Spirit with the preacher, that which is essential to 
its presence must lie, first, in the state of the 
preacher’s heart; secondly, in the staple of his 
discourse. ‘There must be a soul itself in com- 


246 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


munion with the Holy One, and there must he 
rays of truth—God’s own truth radiated from that 
soul to others, along which the Spirit’s secret in 
fluence may be communicated from heart to heart. 
The preacher must first imbibe the Divine fire, 
and then hold it in his heart, as a Leyden jar will 
hold the invisible electricity; and, this done, he 
must have a conductor to communicate it to those 
who are before him. Unless the truth of God be 
uttered, and aimed in the right direction, aimed 
at the auditory, at their conscience, whether 
through the avenue of the imagination, the un- 
derstanding, or the emotions, even had he himself 
the power of the Spirit, he could not convey it to 
others. ‘There is but one conductor, and that is 
the word of Life. 

Suppose that a person wishing to send a message 
from London to Edinburgh by lightning, knows 
how to construct an electric battery; but when he 
comes to consider how he will transmit the im- 
pulse through hundreds of miles, he looks at an 
iron wire, and says, “This is dull, senseless, cold, 
has no sympathy with light; it is unnatural, in 
fact, irrational, to imagine that this dark thing 
can convey a lightning message in a moment.” 
From this he turns and looks ata prism. It glows 
with the many-colored sunbeam. He might say, 
“This is sympathetic with light,” and in its 
flashing imagine that he saw proof that his mes- 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH Q47 


sage would speed through it; but when he puts it 
to the experiment, it proves that the shining prism 
will convey no touch of his silent fire, but that 
the dull iron will transmit it to the farthest end 
of the land. And so with God’s holy truth alone. 
It is adapted to carry into the soul of man the 
secret fire which writes before the inner eye of the 
soul a message from the unseen One in the skies. 
Other proposed conductors may flash more in the 
showy light, but they will not convey the invisible 
fire. 

Again we repeat, that this fire may be combined 
with any form of talent, and with any style of 
composition. Who has not seen a tranquil man, 
whose tones seldom rose to passion, and never 
went beyond the severest taste; whose thought, 
demeanor, phrases, all breathed a gentle and quiet 
spirit; and yet, with the placid flow of instruction 
or exposition, a heavenly influence silently stole 
along, stole into the veins of the heart, diffusing a 
sacred glow, a desire to be holier, a sense of near- 
ness to God, a refreshing of all the good principles 
within you, a check and a restraint on all the 
evil? Again, you have seen a man who begins by 
some calm argument, passes to another point, 
closely reasoned, which again leads him to another 
well-pointed stroke at some error or prejudice; no 
by-play of imagination, no home-thrust to your 
heart, but one steady grapple with your intellect— 


248 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


a discourse which would be pronounced “ drys 
were it not for a mysterious power which accom- 
panies it, not in the sentences, not in the syllo- 
gisms, not in the action, not in the tones, but a 
spirit infused through it all, that makes reasoning 
turn into a spiritual power, and seems to put 
God’s law into your mind, and, at the same time, 
to write itupon your heart. Again, you see aman 
who at once begins with pictures, and from history, 
from nature, from the Bible, from science, he 
strikes up before you a succession of bewitching or 
affecting scenes, playing with your fancy all the 
while as a poet might play with it; and yet every 
picture carries some sacred impulse to your soul, 
and leaves a moral lesson and moral strength behind. 
Another man moyes simply on in a staightforward 
statement of some great doctrine, opening out its 
various branches, defining, setting guards upon his 
definition, shading from possible misconception, 
setting up fine distinctions, and seeming occupied 
principally with putting a truth into a compact 
and portable shape in your mind; but somehow 
this one truth, which he thus explains and defines, 
rouses within your breast the voices of all other 
truths, and evokes an appeal from every sacred 
thing you ever knew in fayor of holy living. An- 
other assumes that you know all that need be 
known; and, seizing upon the truths that are 
within you, upon your conscience with its hight, 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 249 


upon your fear, or hope, or love, on your instinct 
of self-preservation, or on some other of the death- 
less principles of your nature, he pours upon you 
a succession of fervid declamation, exhorting you 
to that which is right; giving nothing to enlarge 
your knowledge, nothing to feed or even to exer- 
cise your reasoning powers, nothing to enrich the 
stores of your fancy, or to perfect your conceptions 
of truth: and yet his declamation brings a holy 
power which commands you more than the might 
of strong-minded men; and good resolutions and 
hopes that have cften been vanquished in days 
gone by, rise up again at the voice of this simple 
man, and you follow him to the feet of the Saviour. 

Come, then, with what voice thou wilt come, 
thou power-clad messenger of my Redeemer. 
Come with thunder on thy tongue, or with a 
sweet “harp of ten strings;”” come to us simple 
as a little child, or wise as a scribe instructed of 
God; but oh! let us only feel in thy message that 
fire which lies not in sentences, nor in tones, but 
in a heart itself inflamed from above, and pour- 
ing fire into our hearts. 

Just as we find all these types of men imbued 
with Divine power, so do we find every one of them 
destitute of it. You have the gentle man, far 
away from anything extravagant, never bringing 
upon himself one word of blame, nor giving to his 
auditory one feeling of trouble; but oh! how 


250 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


drearily years and years pass over him!—precious 
years, yet no souls are converted, no flocks grow 
larger; the field where he labors is never white 
unto the harvest, and it is always sowing time 
with him! ~ Very probably he is content with this, 
and will tell you that in his sphere, though there 
is nothing extraordinary going forward, things 
are encouraging. Placidly does he pass on, al- 
though he knows well, and all who mark his 
course know well, that for long, long years it 
would be hard to say what spiritual life has 
flourished under his hand. So, again, you may 
find the reasoner, clear, cogent, and forcible, enlist- 
ing you on his side, perhaps exciting you on his 
side, perhaps exciting you against everything 
which opposes his system; but no sinners are 
turned into saints by his reasoning; yet he reposes 
well pleased upon the miserable result of having 
argued his point ably—an advocate who has shown 
the jury that he isa master of law, but has lost 
his client’s hfe. And you may find the expositor, 
who will open up paragraph after paragraph with 
rare subtlety of analysis, while his auditory learn 
something of the word of God, and so far become 
more prepared to be good Christians, if once con- 
verted; but with his exposition no converting 
power ever comes: perhaps, indeed, he does not 
think that it is his calling to convert sinners. 
You may also find the man of imagination, who 


a a i = 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 9A 


plays brilliantly upon the various instruments of 
nature and of science. His auditory are dazzled, 
perhaps enraptured; but who among them goes 
home to his closet to seek his Saviour, or rises up 
in after-life to bless the preacher? He was sent 
to fight, but he played off fireworks before the 
enemy, and, instead of fleeing or falling, they 
only said, “How grand!” The declaimer you 
may hear too, whose exhortations run apparently 
to the one point of producing a practical result; 
you have vociferation, and the swell and throe of 
great vehemence; but it is like the hollow report 
of a cannon without shot. 

This absence of power is sometimes so clear that 
the soul that has come to the house of God seeking 
bread, painfully feels that it is getting but a 
stone; and never is that feeling so painful as when 
all that ought to attend upon spiritual power is 
there—the truth well understood and well stated— 
all the lineaments and outward form that would 
lead us to expect life, but, when we draw near, 
there is no breath in it. Sometimes one may see 
that this soulless thing is not a wax figure which 
never breathes, but a corpse from which the life 
has gone. The truths, now uttered with such 
Impotence, once thrilled through men as they fell 
from those lips; the appeals which now grate, like 
a chime of cracked bells, once carried multitudes 


before them. In days gone by many rose up to 
18 


252 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


bless this man as a messenger of God: to-day his 
words are as a tale twice told. Perhaps, conscious 
of the loss of the real power, he endeavors to com- 
pensate for it by a greater force of physical ora- 
tory, spurring himself to impetuosity, or swelling 
to lofty and solemn impressiveness; but it is only 
as When a ship in a calm makes her sails bulge by 
rolling; they flap and rustle, but there is no 
strength in them, as when filled by the silent wind 
they bore the vessel onward. 

Every one of the effects flowing from the opera- 
tion of spiritual power in the ministry is inde- 
scribably precious; and it must be grievous to 
God, as it is manifestly injurious to man, to un- 
derrate any kind of fruit. One professes to be so 
bent on attaining progress in the spiritual life, 
that preaching which is effectual only to the con- 
version of sinners, is to him elementary and poor. 
Another is so exclusively occupied with the dark 
condition of the unsaved, that preaching which 
tends only to ripen the holiness of those already 
converted, is to him beside the mark. One spe- 
cially looks for preaching which will tell upon the 
young; and another for what will content men of 
» years and experience. But every one ought to 
learn that each variety of usefulness is far too es- 
timable to be lightly dealt with. He who is in 
any way used as an instrument to benefit the souls 
of any of my fellow-pilgrims here, ought to be 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 253 


cherished by my heart as a precious friend of my 
own. 

Where real spiritual power exists, it will not be 
wholly confined to one class of effects. He who 
leads on believers to brighter holiness will surely 
lead sinners to see somewhat of the sinfulness of 
their sins; and he who is the means of turning a 
sinner from the error of his ways, is the means, 
in that very act, of aiding the progress of all those 
around him: for each one detached from the world 
and ranked on the side of godliness, becomes a 
help to the general cause of Christianity in the 
land. 

In our own age and nation, we feel no hesitation 
in saying, that the particular form of spiritual 
power for which we have most crying need, is that 
whereby men who know the truth are brought to 
the point of deciding for God, and setting out in 
earnest on the way to heaven. We are in danger 
of laboring as if the ground still needed to be sown; 
while the fields are white unto the harvest, and 
need but a reaper. We are in danger of preach- 
ing as if the people were either all serving God, or 
were all so far away from the possibility of being 
converted soon, that they must beapproached as 
from a distance, and principles laid down and left 
to work which may bring forth fruit after some 
long time; whereas the fact is, that everywhere 
the ground is sown. We meet with comparatively 


254 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


few men in whose minds there is not enough of 
truth to awaken their conscience and point them 
toward the Cross, were that truth only brought 
home to their hearts with power. Men fitted as 
instruments’ to use what the people believe and 
know, in order to bring them to a decision for 
God, are those whom the interests of our genera- 
tion most louldy cail for. Taught by Christianity, 
but led captive by sin, men are going downward 
by thousands and tens of thousands—at once in 
the light and in the dark, knowing their Master’s 
will, but doing it not—downward to the punish- 
ment of many stripes. He, then, who can bring 
those multitudes to stop and think, to feel what 
they believe, to act on what they feel, to cry, 
“Lord, save me, I perish,’’ he is most distinguished 
and most blessed of all the servants whom the 
Master honoreth. 

To heal the leper, to open the eyes of the blind, 
to make the lame walk, and the paralytic strong, 
were great and blessed works; but all these sufferers 
were living men; and great as was the work of 
healing them, to raise the dead was greater far. 
Blessed are ye among men, whom our Lord and 
Master honors to help, or heal, or restore any of 
those souls which are living, but not in perfect 
soundness; but trebly blessed art thou, my brother, 
whose joyful lot it is to stretch thy soul over a soul 
that is dead, as Elisha stretched himself over the 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 955 


dead son of the Shunammite, and to raise it up 
breathing and calling upon God! Oh for a thou- 
sand men imbued with converting power! Better 
they than ten thousand times the number, however 
gifted, however learned, however pleasing, who 
are destitute of that crowning grace of the mes- 
senger of God! 

Our Lord said, “ He that believeth on Me, the 
works that I do shall he do also; yea, and greater 
works than these shall he do, because I go to My 
Father.” By “greater works,” He could not 
mean more wonderful miracles; for the wonders 
wrought by His own hands had reached the limits 
of possibility. Greater miracles than raising the 
dead, and making the winds and the seas obey 
Him, were not to be performed. Besides, the 
“greater works” to be done are shown to have 
some special character from this, that they are to 
exist in connection with a new order of things, 
‘Because I go to My Father.” We are at no loss 
as to that which was specially dependent on His 
ascension. It was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 
And we may therefore reasonably conclude, that 
the “ greater work” than all the other works which 
could be done, was that word which He Himself 
from heaven announced to His servant Paul, as 
the purpose of His mission, “To open their eyes, 
and to turn them from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may 


256 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among 
them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.”’ 
This was the end of His own life and death, this 
was the crown of His own glory: “Thou shalt call 
His name Jésus; for he shall save His people from 
their sins.”” Only in men actually saved from 
their sins did His soul, afflicted and smitten, fore- 
see the fruit of its travail, wherewith it should be 
satisfied. Only in men actually saved from their 
sins while in the flesh, while surrounded by temp- 
tation, could He foresee the possibility of glorify- 
ing His Father upon earth, by His own branches 
bearing much fruit, by His own life, “'The life of 
Christ, being manifest in mortal bodies.” Only 
by this could He see that which He so dearly pur- 
chased, a holy Church formed out of Adam’s fallen 
sons. Only by this could His own especial joy, 
the joy set before Him, the joy of “ bringing many 
sons to glory,’’ ever be secured. ‘To this one re- 
sult His whole work pointed; upon this all the 
interests of His kingdom turned. 

No glory of the Eternal One is higher than this, 
“MIGHTY TO SAVE;"’ no name of Godhead more 
adorable than that of “ SAvioUR;”’ no place among 
the servants of God can be so glorious as that of 
an instrument of salvation. “He that winneth 
souls ig wise.” ‘They that turn many to right- 
eousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” 
Under the new dispensation, the Lord’s messen- 


, a 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 257 


gers, abundantly replenished with the Spirit, hay- 
ing the Cross for their theme, and the baptism 
of fire for their impulse, were to go forth as men 
with whom God would work, accompanying His 
word with signs following it. It was great to cast 
out devils from the body; it is greater to cast 
them out of souls and out of society. It was great 
to heal the sick or to feed the poor; it is greater 
to heal the sources of disease and want, by turning 
sinful hearts to purity. He around whom are 
continually springing up new converts from sin to 
holiness—he, the sound of whose voice many bless 
as having been to them the trump of God, who 
at the great day will have for his crown of rejoic- 
ing tens, or hundreds, or thousands, to whom 
many others were “teachers,” but only he a 
‘‘ father ’’—he rises to such joy and dignity that 
he may look back upon the best and most honored 
of God’s ancient servants, and feel that, in com- 
parison with them, he has only to be thankful for 
his own more blessed lot. He need not envy 
Moses his rod, or David his harp, or Ehjah his 
mantle, or Solomon his wisdom; for his own crown 
and his own prize are the highest to which man 
may aspire. How close the servant is brought to 
the Master. ‘The Master is Saviour, the servant 
the instrument of saving. 

When we speak of ministerial power, we are 
never to be understood as implying that any 


258 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


amount of power in the Minister will necessarily 
subdue his hearers. What may be fully relied 
upon as the result of power dwelling in the Min- 
ister, is that he will make every hearer feel that 
a spiritual power is grappling with him, and bring- 
ing him either to yield to the voice that warns 
him, or to set up a conscious resistance. “ Al- 
most thou persuadest me,” is the language of one 
who can scarcely prevent himself from yielding to 
the force that is impelling him toward Christ. 
Felix trembled, and said, “Go thy way for this 
time; when I have a convenient season, I will call 
for thee.” Here isa man consciously under the 
impulse of a power which is urging him to a result 
that he dreads; and, to escape its influence, he 
adopts the ordinary plan of “putting off for a 
while.” But the very awakening of this conscious 
resistance, the setting-up of this struggle in the 
breasts of men, is in itself a proof of power; and 
he who can do this, although he will have his 
Agrippas and his Felixes over whom to mourn, 
will undoubtedly have numbers of others over whom 
to rejoice. 

A farmer who all his lifetime has been sowing, 
but never brought one shock of corn safe home; 
a gardener who has ever been pruning and train- 
ing, but never brought one basket of fruit away; 
a merchant who has been trading all his life, but 
never concluded one year with clear profit; alawyer 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 259 


who has had intrusted to him, for years and years, 
the most important causes, and has never carried 
one; the doctor who has been consulted by thou- 
sands in disease, and has never brought one patient 
back to health; the philosopher who has been 
propounding principles all his life, and attempt- 
ing experiments every day, but has never once 
succeeded in a demonstration—all these would be 
abashed and humiliated men. They would walk 
through the world with their heads low, they 
would acknowledge themselves to be abortions, 
they would not dare to look up among those of 
their own professions; and as for others regarding 
them with respect, pity would be all they could 
give. Yet, alas! are there not cases to be found 
wherein men whose calling it is to heal souls, pass 
years and years, and seldom, if ever, can any fruit 
of their labors be seen? Yet they hold up their 
heads, and have good reasons to give why they 
are not useful; and those reasons generally lie, 
not in themselves, but somewhere else—in the age, 
the neighborhood, the agitation, or the apathy, 
the ignorance, or the over-education, the want of 
Gospel light, or the commenness of Gospel light, or 
some other reason why the majority of those who 
hear them should continue unconverted, and why 
they should look on in repose, without smiting 
upon their breasts, and crying, day and night, to 
God to breathe a power upon them whereby they 


260 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


might awaken those that sleep. Probably they 
have wise things to say about the undesirableness 
of being too anxious about fruit, and about the 
advantage of the work going on steadily and 
slowly, rather than seeking for an excitement, and 
a rush of converts. But while they are thus doz- 
ing, sinners are going to hell. 

It is pitiable to see a Minister who has all his 
life, when judged by the fruit of his labor, been 
destitute of the power of the Spirit; but there is 
something even more touching to see, as, alas! 
sometimes we do see—one who in his early days 
had truly a gift of God in him, becoming weak, like 
other men without unction, and without fruit. 
The gift, not stirred up, has passed away; the 
power, not renewed and renewed again by fresh sup- 
plies, has forsaken him. Perhaps, desirous of 
more efficiency, he has heaped up knowledge—not 
too much knowledge, for none can have too much; 
but he has not maintained a due proportion be- 
tween his acquisitions of knowledge, and his ac- 
quisition of spiritual power. He is like one who 
would pour coals upon a feeble fire, with the idea 
of making a great one, until the few live coals 
were smothered under a black mass. Perhaps an- 
other has gone just to the opposite extreme; and, 
fearing to damp his lively fire, has allowed it to 
flame on, without constantly feeding it with truth, 
and knowledge, and experience, and thought; and 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH POL 


his fire has burned out. Perhaps another, begin- 
ning to distrust his simple weapon, which had no 
adornments, and could only strike right home, 
has got for himself a jewelled sword with a golden 
blade, but finds that the edge is turned by the 
least resistance. Perhaps another, who used to 
thunder as a second Baptist, and make the truths 
of the eternal law, of the resurrection, of judg- 
ment, and of the world to come, ring in the ears 
of slumbering souls with a supernatural and 
awakening power, begins to desire something more 
alluring, less distressing to the sensitive, more ac- 
ceptable to the sedate, more “attractive,” as the 
phrase is; and now you may find him an absurd 
combination of strength and feebleness—a gunner 
working heavy guns, but with silver barrels, and 
scented powder, and balls of frozen honey. 

In the progress of a man’s life it will often hap- 
pen that great variations appear in his usefulness; 
but if he walk with God, maintain his integrity, 
and make steady progress in knowledge and in 
faith, although the form of his usefulness may 
change, it will never change into uselessnegs. 
When the flush and glow of youthful ardor disap- 
pear, they will be replaced, not by vapidness or 
tameness, but by more of the unction that elevates 
and hallows. There is a law of mechanics, the 
moral counterpart of which we see in such men, 
that what is lost in velocity is gained in power. 


262 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


And yet such men, though they may be blessed 
with great usefulness, if they see not conversions 
such as rejoiced their earler days, will ever look 
back with yearning and humiliation. Never will 
they fail to-honor, above all their brethren, those 
whom God honors by making them the instru- 
ments of many conversions, or to covet, with a 
coveting more eager than they could feel for any 
other distinction, or joy, or gift, the restoration 
to them of the power to persuade sinners to be rec- 
onciled to God. 

A more pitiable thing cannot be than to see a 
man who, himself destitute of ministerial power, 
not only is unconscious how miserable a creature 
he is, but is even ready to make light of the use- 
fulness of others; and, in his ordinary conversation, 
to set down those whom the Lord honors as the 
instruments of converting sinners, below what he 
calls “intellectual’’ men, fine soliloquizers, or 
curious speculators, who deal out dainties from 
the pulpit, but do no work that will live when 
they are dead. This style of depreciating the use- 
ful and the earnest, painful in any one, becomes 
appalling when it falls from the lips of a man who 
at one stage of his own life was remarkably useful, 
but who has lost his fire; and who, instead of 
mourning, and seeking to recover it, can even 
make light of those who have retained theirs. 
“It is not hard to convert servant-maids,” and 


i 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 263 


such depreciating expressions may lightly drop 
from an unthinking lp, but they will affect 
hearers, and will be remembered in the great day; 
and how differently will the two men appear— 
the one whose humble labor has been the means of 
converting servant-maids, and the one whose envy 
and whose wit were vented in making light of the 
work. 

Oh, let those of us whose history too plainly 
tells that no extraordinary power of God has rested 
upon us; who can look back to years of labor, 
which, if not absolutely barren, yet, in compari- 
son with what others have reaped, must be called 
years of barrenness—let us not fail to bless and to 
honor, in our own hearts, those who have been in 
the mean time doing us good by the news that has 
reached us, every now and then, of the fruit of 
their labor. Above all, let us look back on our 
years of barrenness with most tender and contrite 
humiliation, crying earnestly to God to take away 
our reproach from among men, and to give us 
many, many children. 

A Minister can never be responsible for success, 
but he is responsible for power; responsible, not 
only for presenting the truth to the people—in 
which many seem to think that their responsi- 
bility terminates—but responsible also for this, 
that the truth he presents be not dry, but accom- 
panied with some energy of the Spirit. If the 


264 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Spirit be in the man, shining upon his soul with 
the light of God, more or less of holy fire will go 
with the word. A frame having muscular strength, 
without nervous energy—a countenance with linear 
grace, without expression—a needle for the com- 
pass, without magnetism, are not more defective 
than is the statement of religious truth without 
the accompanying power of the Holy Spirit. 
This power was presupposed in the man’s first 
entrance on the ministry. He stands there by 
virtue of his solemn declaration before God and 
men that he felt it in his heart; and he is bound 
to stir up the gift of God within him, to keep his 
lamp trimmed and his light burning, and ever- 
more to be replenishing with holy oil. 

This power has but one source—the Spirit of 
God in the soul of man. It is the one thing that 
cannot be feigned. A hypocrite may possess the 
truth, may clearly explain, powerfully urge, and 
passionately apply it. He may feign tenderness, 
feign ardor, feign all the passions, but he cannot 
feign the power that searches the conscience, that 
makes men feel, “God is in you of a truth,” that 
leads them in the silence of their own closets to 
wet their couch with their tears, and spend long 
nights in repenting before God. You may as well 
attempt to feign life in a dead eye, or music ina 
cracked voice, as to feign the power of the Holy 
Spirit in a soul that does not habitually wait at 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 265 


the throne of grace, until endued with power from 
on high. 

Those of us who are manifestly not endued with 
great power, who cannot flatter ourselves that any 
one looks upon us as blessed messengers of God. 
or in any light higher than that of well-meaning 
and useful men, by whose ministry, perhaps, now 
and then, at rare intervals, such a thing may be 
heard of as a sinner being converted, and who yet 
feel disinclined to take any blame to our own heart 
on account of our barrenness, can best judge how 
much time has been spent in our closets, in deplor- 
ing the state of the souls that are perishing under 
our sight, in strong crying and tears to God for their 
deliverance, in importuning and imploring that 
we might be robed with power, and made mighty 
to blow an awakening blast, and rescue multitudes 
from the grasp of the devil. 

We can, each one for himself, best tell whether 
or not the results of our labors do very fairly cor- 
respond with the depth, intensity, and continuity 
of our secret search after the co-working fire of 
the Spirit. If on a review it should appear clear 
to us that far, far more might have been done in 
our private walk with God toward having our own 
souls imbued with the Spirit of Christ and of 
Christ’s Apostles, then let each of us conclude for 
himself, whether much more might or might not 
have been done to “save those that hear him.” 


266 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


And should the conclusion on our mind be clear 
that more might have been done, much more— 
that it ought to have been done—that we are verily 
guilty by reason of supineness, of unbelief, of 
feeble and ineffectual prayer, of duplicity in our 
aim, or of any other defect in the keeping our own 
souls as God’s ambassadors, let our penitence be 
deep, our cry for forgiveness pressing and earnest; 
but not for one moment let it take that form 
which strangely unnerves and debilitates a man, 
namely, the state of mind in which one takes 
pleasure in talking of his own feebleness and un- 
worthiness, or, at least, finds sufficient relief in 
talking of it. Rather let us feel sure that the 
God of grace and mercy will hearken to our voice, 
will answer our prayer, will forgive our past un- 
faithfulness, will draw near to us with new and 
gracious power, will enable us to go forth as giants 
refreshed with new wine, to bear away from the 
arms of the adversary, in triumph and with shout- 
ing, many a lamb that ‘is ready to be torn to 
pieces. 

We cannot be content to look upon the Minister 
of this actual hour as anything less, in the inten- 
tion of our God and Saviour, thin an instrument 
“of the mighty power of God ”—the power which 
is unto salvation. We do not expect the gift of 
tongues or of miracles, because these were not es- 
sential to the work of the ministry; but the active 


— Oe 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 267 


co-operation, the abiding unction of the Holy 
Spirit is. If we were forced to believe either that 
all the primitive manifestations of the Spirit were 
now attainable, or that all had now passed away, 
we would a thousand times rather look for the 
tongues and the miracles, with the gift of proph- 
esying, than dismiss the hope of this last with 
that of the other gifts. Better the excess of faith, 
a thousand times better and more rational, than 
unbelief in any promise that stands clearly for all 
generations. Better to suppose that the Lord de- 
signed every sign and every token of His presence 
to continue with His Church to the last; than 
suppose that they were all to be called back, and 
that the Christians of the latter day were to suffer 
a total privation of the Holy Spirit’s ministerial 
gifts. 

We will covet, earnestly covet, the Lord’s good 
gift of prophesying; and we will covet, also, the 
“manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal,” not 
only in the Pastors of the Church, but in the 
members, giving to one the word of wisdom, to 
another the word of knowledge, to another the 
Spirit of grace and of supplications, that men 
with fire in their hearts may go everywhere, and 
publicly or privately preach the word, the Lord 
working with them, and confirming the word by 
signs following. Let us look up and hope to see, 


not one, or two, or three, not merely an occasional 
19 


268 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


and extraordinary man, shining in the churches 
as with a light from on high; but let us soberly 
and steadily, and in prayer, expect companies of 
preachers, each differing from his brethren, yet 
all of them manifesting in some form or another 
that an anointing from the Holy One abides upon 
them, teaches them in all things, and enables them 
to appear before men, not only saying in words, 
but by their commending fruits saying to the con- 
science, “‘ Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, 
as though God did beseech you by us: we pray 
you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” 
One such man is better than a thousand, and two 
of them will put ten thousand to flight. 


VIII.—The Converting Influence of the Holy Spirit. 


Intimately connected with the question of min- 
isterial power is another vital question—whether 
or not the Church is to retain the convert- 
ing influence of the Holy Spirit on anything 
like the original scale. Here, again, we do not 
confine ourselves to combating formally stated 
opinions, but deal with vague, undefined, unex- 
pressed, or but half-expressed, sentiments, not 
embodied in the creed of any Church, but per- 
ceptible in the ordinary tone equally of religious 
conversation, literature and preaching. Is it not 
a prevalent state of feeling, that to look for a very 
large number of conversions at once is extrava- 


. 
i ere 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 269 


gant; that for any Minister to expect a great 
many to be converted while he is delivering the 
sermon then in hand, argues a mind scarcely bal- 
anced; that sudden conversions have much to be 
said against them; that we ought to be content 
if the work of God proceed slowly, and to be elated 
if the good men of any community bear some re- 
spectable proportion to the numbers who forget 
God? 

It is manifest that the conversions effected by 
the primitive Church were very numerous, com- 
pared with her agencies and facilities; varying 
greatly in different times and places, but, in the 
main, going onward with accumulative power. 
The difference between the conversion of a Jew to 
the faith and holiness of the Gospel, and the con- 
version of a nominal Christian to the same faith 
and holiness, is a difference, not of kind, but of 
degree; and the degree is not so great as might 
at first sight be supposed. The Jew believed the 
oracles of God, and the truth therein contained ag 
far as he knew them. ~ So does the nominal Chris- 
tian. Both hold the truth in unrighteousness— 
the unrighteousness of frank rebellion, or of 
Pharisaical self-righteousness. Both are brought 
to learn God’s love in redeeming man, to repent, to 
believe on the crucified Messiah as their Saviour, 
and to walk in fellowship with the Father and the 
Son. 


270 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


The conversion of a heathen involved much 
more of intellectual enlightenment, and, on the 
whole, presented a greater difficulty, and a greater 
change; but we do not find that the Apostles ever 
point out any difference in the operation of the 
Spirit in the conversion of a Jewish scribe, and of 
a heathen necromancer, of a Roman centurion, 
and of a widow in Jerusalem. ‘The same mighty 
power convinced them all of sin, of righteousness, 
and of judgment, and brought them to a level by 
the wounds of a smitten spirit: then—like those 
with various maladies, who all came to Christ, and 
were all healed—came barbarian and Scythian, 
bond and free, Jew and Greek, learned and un- 
learned. 

If we take the hundred and twenty disciples of 
whom the Church consisted on the Day of Pente- 
cost, and then take the number of Christians be- 
fore the first century was ended, we see how 
“mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed.” 
Then, suppose for one moment, the possibility 
that, by the same Spiritual power, the Church 
had multiphed her converts in equal ratio: few 
ages would have elapsed before the whole earth 
would have been renewed in righteousness. But 
the saint-making power abated; and crowds of 
Christians became little better, though still better, 
than crowds of heathen. Was this loss of efficiency 
owing to the unfaithfulness of men, and, there- 


aE a 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH Q271 


fore, capable of being recovered by return to the 
original means of importunate prayer and strong 
faith? or was it owing to a design of the Head of 
the Church, and therefore irrecoverable? 

On a question so vital to the interests of man- 
kind, no mind ought to float on the prevailing 
current without adopting a deliberate conviction. 
Was the conversion of thousands in Jerusalem, of 
crowds in Ephesus, in Samaria, Antioch, Corinth, 
Rome, and elsewhere, a proof, once for all, of 
what God could do toward the saving of this lost 
world, which He designed never to repeat, and 
which His children would be presumptuous in ex- 
pecting to see again? Were those multitudes, so 
speedily gathered out of the world, to represent, in 
future ages, only small companies of true be- 
lievers, to whom accessions were to be very gradual, 
and who were never to gain the overwhelming 
majority? Ifso, then the Christian dispensation 
was deliberately planned above to begin in sunrise, 
but, instead of shining more and more to the per- 
fect day, speedily to pale into twilight; and then 
darken to a long, long night, in which stars would 
thinly spangle a wide space of gloom. 

Would not many who recoil from this conclu- 
sion stare at a man having a congregation of a 
thotsand people before him, any one of whom 
would feel perplexed if you asked him, “ Could you 
confidently lay your hand on fifty persons in this 


272 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


congregation who are living like heirs of heayen?”’ 
—if he, simply teling them their state, would go 
on to say, that they might all that very morning 
become children of God, and live for “the rest of 
their time ’» a new and blessed life? Were it done 
with the official formality which at once indicated 
that it was just a thing proper to be believed, and 
even to be said now and then, very probably it 
would excite no remark; but if it were done with 
the downright air of a man who thoroughly meant 
what he said, and was then and there looking for 
corresponding results, would not many be startled? 
But why? If it be not true that God has with- 
drawn from Christianity the converting power of 
the Holy Ghost, why? Hither affirm your prin- 
ciple, or abandon the habit of thonght which you 
have formed on the assumption of that principle. 
If you see that there is death to the Church, or 
death to souls, in the principle, why not see that 
there is death, too, in assuming it, and acting 
upon it, as clearly announced, without affirming 
it? 

Some who would be gratified to see an expecta- 
tion of one conversion, or of a few, would never- 
theless be disturbed by the manifest expectation 
of a great number. Why should this be? If the 
Minister of the Gospel is not now to go before a 
multitude with a frank and earnest assurance that 
every one of them who will only repent and believe 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH BO 


may “receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” it must 
be because our dispensation has been fearfully 
changed since its opening. The first multitude 
who stood before a preacher of Christianity can 
never be regarded as representing itself alone. 
When the cry arose from it, “ What must we do?” 
it was not the men then present only who inquired. 
It was you, and I, and every man who ever comes 
to a preacher of the Gospel to hear what he has to 
say on the great subject of our salvation. The 
answer which Peter rendered to that multitude 
was not to them alone, but to us and to our 
children, to all, of every age and every nation, 
who put the question which they put. That 
answer was, “ Repent, and be baptized, every one 
of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the re- 
mission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Ghost.” Ue does not promise them that 
they should be admitted as members of the Church 
merely, accounted Christians merely, or that after 
death they shall inherit eternal happiness; but, 
in plain strong words, he tells them that they shall 
receive that blessing which constitutes the sub- 
stance of the Gospel: “Ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Ghost;” and this, not “some of you,” 
but “every one of you,” with no condition what- 
ever but that they “repent, and be baptized.” 

Is it to be supposed that Peter would have altered 
this reply, had you, and I, and our children been 


274 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


there? or that, had the image of future genera- 
tions risen to his eye as standing behind those he 
addressed and represented by them, he would have 
qualified his grand promise, and taken care to 
falter something guarded, instead of plainly say- 
ing, “Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost?’’ Let those who fear to regard this 
promise as equally applicable to us as to them, 
only read the words with which he follows it up: 
“For the promise is unto you, and to your 
children, and to all that are afar off, even as 
many as the Lord our God shall call.” On the 
next occasion when he addresses a multitude, he 
holds this language: “ Unto you first, God, having 
raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, 
am turning away every one of you from his iniqui- 
ties.” Here the converting grace of Christ is 
without hesitation proclaimed to all who stand be- 
fore him. 

It is to be remarked that what he here states 
to be Christ’s mode of blessing men lies in con- 
version itself, in the “turning away” of a man 
“from his iniquities.” Whatever the Gospel may 
do indirectly for the enlightenment and elevation 
of a man, so long as he continues the servant of 
sin, it has conferred upon him no eternal advan- 
tage. “ His servants ye are to whom ye obey,” is a 
word that must stand forever. He that is still 
doing the work of Satan is his servant, and with 


¥ 
4 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 275 


him must take his reward. And it is also notable 
that he speaks of Jesus having been sent to bless 
them after He had been raised; thus announcing 
a mission of Christ subsequent to His resurrection, 
yet having already taken place in those days. 
This must be that presence of Christ which He 
promised them when He was about to depart from 
them, saying, in the very act of leaving them, ‘I 
am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world.” 

“With them,” no longer in that body which 
confined Him to the very spot in which the 
‘T'welve were, but, “with them” by the power of 
His Spirit, which is represented in the Apocalypse 
as the “eyes of the Lamb.” “And I beheld, and 
lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four 
beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a 
Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and 
seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent 
forth into all the earth.” * Here we have the 
Lamb enthroned, yet “as slain,” with the tokens 
of death and atonement upon Him; yet, again, 
“having seven horns,’ the signs of universal kin- 
ship, “and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits 
of God sent forth into all the earth.’ Majesty, 
mediation, and spiritual presence ‘“ throughout 
all the earth,” are here gloriously set before us; 
and the Lamb, though no longer bodily present 


+ Rev. v. 6. 


276 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


with one group of disciples, is present with all, 
by His Spirit, which is moving in the hearts of 
those who serve Him, as if it were the glance of 
the Lord. He ascended that He might be with 
us all and with us always, just as a Prince, on the 
eve of the battle, would retire from any one di- 
vision of his army, and go above them, that he 
might be present with all; for he would be present 
with every battalion that he had under his sight. 
And as that Prince would dart his own spirit by 
his eye into the breast of every follower, so does 
our King dart His into the breast of all who wait 
before His throne. 

The one blessing, then, which the exalted 
Mediator has to confer on this world is, in “ turn- 
ing men from their iniquities,”’ in converting 
sinners from the error of their ways, in bringing 
those who are afar off from God nigh to Him, and 
making those who are now living in sin to be 
“heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ;” re- 
storing, in fact, the image of God upon the earth, 
manifesting the Divine ideal of humanity in our 
“mortal bodies,” rearing up communities who 
shall be properly called, “the children of our 
Father who is in heaven”—communities, whose 
ruling nature shall not be that of fallen Adam, 
but who shall have that mind in them which was 
also in Christ, being made partakers of the Divine 
nature, and, in proof thereof, loving those that 


_ 
* 
? . 
a 
5 
; 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH Qe¢ 


hate them, blessing those that curse them, pray- 
ing for those that despitefully use them and perse- 
cute them; and thus, by returning good feelings 
for bad feelings, good words for bad words, good 
deeds for bad deeds, showing themselves the chil- 
dren of their Father in heaven. The triumph and 
glory of Christ lies in so renewing the face of the 
earth, that this image of God shall be the preva- 
lent characteristic of humanity, that peace and 
good-will shall take hold of nations, righteousness 
and truth flourish in the homes of all. 

The accomplishment, to a considerable extent, 
of this great purpose formed the singular glory of 
the early Church. To a community in the city 
of Rome it could be said, “ Ye were the servants of 
sin. . . But now, being made free from sin, and 
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto 
holiness, and the end everlasting life.” To an- 
other company in the city of Corinth it could be 
said, after describing the various classes of sinners 
who could not see the Kingdom of God, “Such 
were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are 
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” To 
some of the city of Ephesus it could be said, “ And 
you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses 
and sins; wherein in times past ye walked accord- 
ing to the course of this world, according to the 
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now 


278 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


worketh in the children of disobedience: among 
whom also we all had our conversation in times 
past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires 
of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature 
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, 
who is rich in mercy, for His great love where- 
with He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, 
hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace 
ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, 
and made us sit together in heavenly places in 
Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might 
show the exceeding riches of His grace in His 
kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” * To 
some in the city of Colosse it could be said, “ Giv- 
ing thanks unto the Father, which hath made 
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of 
the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the 
power of darkness, and hath translated us into the 
kingdom of His dear Son.” + To some in Thes- 
salonica it could be said, “ And ye became followers 
of us, and of the Lord, having received the word 
in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so 
that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Mace- 
donia and Achaia.” { And when our Lord looked 
down from heaven upon the Seven Churches of Asia, 
even His eyes of flame, looking upon the Church 
of Sardis itself, saw there were “some names in 
Sardis which had not defiled their garments.” 
* Eph. ii. 1-7. +Col. i. 12, 13. +1 Thess. i. 6, 7. 


Se te te Te 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 279 


To suppose that this power to regenerate man, 
and thereby to ameliorate human society, has been 
withdrawn from the Church by the will and ap- 
pointment of her adorable Head, is to suppose, in 
fact, that the one practical end of Christianity 
has been voluntarily abandoned—that end which 
lies in glorifying God upon the earth, and in sav- 
ing the souls of men. If Christianity cannot re- 
new men in the image of God, she ceases to have 
any special distinction above other religions, ex- 
cept the one of more wisdom and more virtue. 
Her mission here was to overcome Satan in the 
realm in which he had hitherto triumphed, to re- 
establish the empire of God over the hearts and 
lives of a race that had wandered from Him, and 
to prepare out of the children of that race heirs 
meet for a pure and an immortal kingdom. 

Not only would this practical end be abandoned, 
but the standing. evidence to. Christianity would 
be discontinued. ‘The miracles and phrophecies 
of the past time are an evidence to Christianity as 
a system of truth; but if she be only a system of 
truth, and not also a power unto salvation, she 
but adds to the guilt of men here by increasing 
their light, and to their misery hereafter by in- 
creasing their stripes. No miracles, no prophecies, 
no accumulation of arguments under heaven, 
can demonstrate to our neighbors at this moment 
that Christianity is a power which can actually 


280 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


make men superior to their own circumstances and 
their own sins; which can take men of this nine- 
teenth century, men with sin in their blood, sin 
in their bones, sin in their habits, sin in their 
_downsitting and their uprising, sin against God, 
sin against their neighbor, sin against themselves, 
sins of self-interest and sins against self-interest, 
sins for happiness, and sins that wreck happi- 
ness—and out of these men, still living in the 
very circumstances wherein their past time has 
been spent, make “servants of God, free from sin, 
having their fruit unto holiness, and the end ever- 
lasting life.” 

The evidence of this, the only real and effective 
evidence, is living men who have been regenerated, 
and whose good works plainly declare them to be 
of our Father who is in heaven. We, too, can 
say, that “God has sent His Son Jesus to bless” 
our neighbors, “in turning away every one of them 
from his iniquities;” but how unimpressive would 
be our saying it, were there none to whom we could 
point them, and add, “These are our epistles, 
known and read of all men.” 

Peter, recurring again to the kingly state of the 
Saviour, said, “Him hath God exalted with His 
right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to 
give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 
And we are His witnesses of these things; and so 
is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 281 


them that obey Him.” * Here is the double evi- 
dence, that of Apostles, and that of the Spirit in 
living converts. We of this day are also Christ’s 
witnesses that He is “exalted a Prince and a 
Saviour, to give repentance and forgiveness of 
sins;” but our witness must be corroborated by 
those who, having received the Holy Ghost, live 
in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit. 

Peter, in speaking of the witness which the 
Prophets bore to Christ, sums it up thus: “To 
Him give all the Prophets witness, that through 
His name whosoever believeth in Him shall re- 
ceive remission of sins.” When we bear this wit- 
ness, we ought to expect the same attestation of it 
which Peter saw in his Gentile audience, and 
which he afterward quoted to prove that they also 
had received salvation as well as the Jews; namely, 
“God put no difference between us” (the first 
Jewish converts) “and them, purifying their hearts 
by faith.” Whenever men can be pointed to, 
whose hearts have been purified by faith, whose 
lives are a manifest example of salvation from sin, 
there is the standing evidence that Christianity is 
“the power of God unto salvation; and no other 
description of evidence, as we before said, can 
prove this. Is it supposable that Christ has with- 
drawn from His Church, or diminished that 
power which would show continually that He 
“saves His people from their sins?” 

PACESIV« Off. 32: 


282 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


The converting power is also the Ohurch’s great 
attraction. It is true that some would attract 
men by ceremonies, or talent, or the charms of 
architecture or music—attract them that they 
may convert them; whereas the true order is, 
Convert that you may attract. The one is the 
order of the charlatan, who trusts to factitious al- 
lurements for attracting the public, in the hope 
that he may cure some; the other, the order of 
the true physician, who trusts to the fact of his 
curing some as the means of attracting others. 
Whenever the Church sends into a family one new 
convert glowing with love and joy, she kindles a 
light which will, in all probability, give light to 
all that are in the house. Whenever she is the 
means of making one shopman turn from his sins, 
and exhibit to his comrades a picture of holy liv- 
ing, in all probability she will soon have others 
from that shop at her altars. Whenever she 
brings one factory-girl to sit, like Mary, at the 
feet of Jesus, very probably in a little while other 
Marys will be with her. 

In every situation, new converts are the most 
powerful attraction that ever acts on those who 
are still in the world. There seems a peculiar 
spiritual power connected with the first love, and 
an impressiveness in the words, of new converts, 
enforced by the manifest change in them, which 
nothing else can exert. That house of God which 


oe 
“~~ a 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 283 


becomes noted in a neighborhood as a place in 
which many sinners have been “transformed by 
the renewing of their minds,” will, by a certain 
instinct of our redeemed humanity, soon become a 
centre of attraction, not only to those who, with 
scarcely any light, are groping after the truth, 
but even to many who are still hardly going on in 
sin. The greatest fame of Christianity is the 
fame of the cures she works, her greatest glory 
the glory of the saints she trains, her own unshared 
renown the renown of sinners renewed in the image 
of God; and wherever works of this kind are noised 
abroad in any community, there will the preacher 
not want hearers, there will the sower not be with- 
out a field. 

The converting power is also the principal lever 
which Christianity can use for raising the standard 
of morals in nations. Instruction is the basis of 
all moral operation; but instruction in morals, 
like instruction in science, is of little force unless 
backed by experiment. Say all you can to men 
about the duty of returning good for evil, they 
will scarcely have a clear conception of it, until 
they see some man deliberately benefiting one from 
whom he has received deliberate injury. One 
tradesman converted, and manfully taking ground 
among his companions against trade tricks once 
used by himself, casts greater shame upon their 


dishonesty than allethe instructions they ever 
20 


284 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


heard from pulpits; or, rather, gives an edge, a 
power, and an embodiment to them all. One 
youth whom religion strengthens to walk purely 
among dissipated companions sends lights and 
stings into‘their consciences which mere instruc- 
tion could not give, because it shows them that 
purity is not, as temptation says, unattainable. 
And so with all the virtues; it is but by embodying 
them in the persons of men that they become 
thoroughly understood in the public mind. 

It is but too well known that there are nations 
of the highest civilization, in which all that need 
be said about truthfulness has been said for ages, 
till the word “truth” is on the lips of every one; 
yet it is next to impossible to find one being who 
has anything like a just conception of what manly, 
consistent, continual truth-telling is. 

Just in proportion as the number of converted 
men is great or small, will be the amount of con- 
science in the community generally. Viewed in 
this light, each conversion facilitates future con- 
versions. Hach new convert adds somewhat to the 
moral influence existing among men, and each ad- 
ditional thousand greatly improves the public con- 
science, and weakens the ties which bind men to 
sin. Where no one is godly, moderately correct 
persons are almost ashamed of their lack of bad- 
ness; where a tenth of the adults are godly, even 
ordinary sinners are ashamed of their lack of good- 


Esty, 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 285 


ness; and where a fifth, or a third, of the adults 
are godly, the hindrances to the conversion of the 
rest are as nothing, compared with those that 
exist where the great masses are still living in their 
sins. 

The converting power is also the only means 
whereby Christianity raises up agents for her own 
propagation. That which is wanted in an agent, 
above all, is zeal—zeal for God, burning desire to 
save sinners. ‘This zeal is never a matter of mere 
conviction, but always a matter of nature. It is 
“Christ in you.” It is “the love of Christ con- 
straining you.” It is the Divine nature, which 
delights to communicate, to bestow, to purify, to 
save, breathed into the soul of man, and impelling 
it in the same course wherein Christ Himself 
moved. Agents with this nature we can have only 
by successive outpourings of the Spirit of God, 
by constant accessions of new converts. 

When they who have been great sinners are 
themselves converted to God, having been forgiven 
much, they love much, and frequently become 
mighty instruments of winning others to Christ. 
For the high work of the ministry, either we 
must content ourselves to make Ministers by a 
factitious process, or we must look to see them 
springing up from amid multitudes of new con- 
verts, who in youth turn to the Lord, and devote 
themselves to do Hig will. When conversions are 


286 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


not few, but many—when “numbers turn to the 
Lord ”’—when the inhabitants of one town say to 
those of another, “ Come,’ let us go speedily to seek 
the Lord, and to pray before the Lord of hosts ”— 
when there are many repenting, and many rejoic- 
ing, saying, ““ We have redemption in His blood, 
even the forgiveness of sins””—then will assuredly ~ 
appear some with plain marks that the spirit of 
the Prophets is in them, and that they are called 
to spread, far and wide, the glorious salvation of 
which they themselves partake. 

Nothing so reanimates the zeal of old Christians 
as witnessing the joy and simplicity, the gratitude 
and fervor, of those who have been lately born of 
God. While the old disciple is to the young one 
an example of moderation and strength, the young 
is to the old an example of fervor; the one shedding 
upon the other a steadying influence, while he 
receives in return a cheering and an impelling 
one. 

It is also wonderful how much the occurrence 
of conversions heightens the efficiency of men al- 
ready employed in the ministry, or in other de- 
partments of the work of God. The preacher 
preaches with new heart, the exhorter exhorts 
with revived feeling, he that prays has double 
faith and fervor; and the joy of conquest breathes 
new vigor into all the Lord’s host. 

While the importance, and in fact the necessity, 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 287 


of the converting power of the Spirit may be ad- 
mitted in the abstract, all its practical value may 
be set aside by cherishing dislike to the idea of 
sudden conversions, or numerous conversions. It 
is deemed sober to expect conversions some time, 
but not so to expect them now; and as the “now” 
perpetuates itself on, and on, and on through the 
lifetime of a generation, the time to look for their 
conversion never comes, and the next generation 
succeed to the same chill law of unbelief; each 
one living in the doomed “now,” when the con- 
verting power is not to be looked for without 
fanaticism. 

The preference so carefully and even ostenta- 
tiously displayed by many good men for what are 
called gradual conversions over sudden ones, may 
have some foundation—but not in Scripture. All 
the conversions we find mentioned in the New 
Testament are sudden. That of Lydia is the only 
one that is ever cited as being gradual, and yet it 
took place under one sermon. The expression, 
“The Lord opened her heart,” cannot imply, at 
the very most, more than that the action upon her 
heart was a gentle one; the door was opened, not 
burst in; but it did not take three months to 
open it—it was done ina day. The sudden con- 
version is an operation manifestly Divine. It 
brings with it a token of something supernatural; 
and when the after-life attests its genuineness, 


288 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


there is in the very fact of its suddenness a per- 
petual memento of “the mighty power of God.” 
The natural aversion of the heart to everything 
which forces upon it the consciousness of a spiritual 
and supernatural power moving in this present 
life, sufficiently accounts for the tendency we all 
feel to prefer some mode of operation which would 
appear less supernatural than the sudden, not to 
say miraculous, transformations from sin to godl- 
ness, which form the commonplace chronicles of 
the early Church. 

As to the question, whether those who are sud- 
denly converted are or are not as stable as those 
upon whom the work is more gradual, few are in 
a good position to judge; for every one who is 
suddenly converted is sure to have many eyes upon 
him, and if he draw back, the notice of all these 
is excited; whereas many who gradually take up a 
religious profession gradually drop it again, and 
scarcely any notice is taken. But, be the question 
of stability settled as it may, it is certain that the 
Scriptural examples of conversion are sudden, and 
equally certain that, if we are to look only for 
gradual conversions, we must deliberately make up 
our minds to see millions upon millions of our 
countrymen die impenitent, who, if sudden con- 
versions are multiplied, may yet be brought to 
God before the end of their days. The jailer was 
found at the extremity of sinfulness, just in the 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 289 


act of suicide; yet that very night salvation was 
preached to him, embraced by him, and filled his 
heart with holy joy. 

Some would not so much object to sudden con- 
versions, if many of them did not take place at a 
time. But there is something unaccountable in 
the feeling with which even godly men look upon 
any movement in which it would seem that a 
large number of sinners have been simultaneously 
turned to God. First, they can hardly believe 
that the work is real. Then, if they must believe 
that it is real, they begin to prophesy that it will 
not be lasting. Then, if they think that it has 
lasted, they still incline to think that they had 
better not look for anything so extraordinary 
among their own neighbors, but go on steadily, as 
they say, gaining by degrees. 

One simple objection to this theory of “ going 
on steadily ” (that is, slowly) is, that it coolly con- 
signs whole generations to hell, and leaves us with 
the dreadful feeling, that the best progress of the 
work of God is a progress which leaves the great 
majority of those now alive hopelessly in their 
sins. Another objection to this “going on 
steadily’ is, that it is not Pentecostal; it is not 
primitive; it is not after the example of “the 
mighty power of God.” In the early Church con- 
versions were by the hundred and the thousand; 
the word spread, not with the moderation dear to 


290 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


small and proper men, who are always afraid of 
being charged with extravagance, but with the 
sweep and power of a Divine movement, the agents 
in which were borne onward as on the wings of 
the wind, willing to be a laughing-stock to men, 
willing to hear an outcry from the world which 
they were turning upside down. 

When conversions are very numerous, in pro- 
portion to the human instruments, the agency of 
God is much more strikingly manifested than when 
they are few. Although the man who, by his 
own experience, knows what it is to pass from 
darkness to light, will see an evidence of the power 
of the Holy Ghost in any and every true conver- 
sion; those who have no such experience, easily 
avoid concluding that a supernatural power is in 
action, so long as they can trace an imagined pro- 
portion between the agency and the results. Ifa 
few people are turned from their sins by many 
preachers, it seems no more than natural; if a 
few holy men are found in a multitude, it is only 
another proof, they think, of the fact that there 
will always be a certain number of good people 
among the wicked. But if a large number of 
thoughtless youths, or confirmed sinners, become 
devoted to God through the instrumentality of 
some one preacher, and if this extend to neigh- 
borhood after neighborhood, a feeling falls upon 
spectators that it is not to be accounted for by 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 291 


reasoning about proportion, but by the operation 
of a superior power. 

Let but the results of preaching as to the number 
and suddenness of the conversions pass a certain 
point—let the number be thousands, and the time 
one day—and the idea of attributing this to the 
power of some men would not enter the mind. 
Who ever, on reading that three thousand Jews 
were converted on the day of Pentecost, and lived 
holy lives afterward, thought of exclaiming, 
‘“ What a preacher Peter was!” The magnitude 
of the effect at once suggests a superhuman 
cause. Had the result been small, the man would 
have been glorified; but when it took such wide 
proportions, he was thrown into the shade, and 
“the mighty power of God” alone occupies the 
mind. When a flash of light falls on our path in 
the street in the evening, we should at once think 
of a lamp, because the surface illuminated in it- 
self indicates some such origin. But if we see a 
light fall upon a hill, and sweep over successive 
hills until a whole country-side is brightened, we 
think of the sun. 

Too many conversions now take place, too many 
really converted men are to be found, to permit 
any one to believe that the converting power of 
the Spirit has been wholly withdrawn from the 
Church. His presence in the midst of us is -at- 
tested by many witnesses; but the practical ques- 


292 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


tion for us is, Is it contrary to the design of God 
that true believers now should multiply them- 
selves as rapidly, in proportion, as they did after 
the day of Pentecost? If it be, then, no matter 
what means may be used, that result cannot be 
obtained; but, if it be not, then we are bound to 
hope that, the same means being used—the same 
prayer, faith, and zeal being put forth on the part 
of the Church—the same blessing of the Holy 
Spirit will be vouchsafed. 


IX.—All Substantial Gifts Abide. 


On the whole question as to what permanent 
benefits remain to the Church from the dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit, we contend that everything sub- 
stantial implied in the gift of the Holy Ghost re- 
mains unimpaired. Whatever is necessary to the 
holiness of the individual, to the spiritual life 
and ministering gifts of the Church, or to the 
conversion of the world, is as much the heritage 
of the people of God in the latest days as in the 
first. We donot see that the miraculous effects 
which followed the Pentecost are promised to all 
ages and all people, and therefore we do not look 
for them to reappear; but we feel satisfied that 
he who does expect the gift of healing, and the 
gift of tongues, or any other miraculous manifesta- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, in addition to those sub- 
stantial blessings of which these were, as we have 


PERMANENT BENEFITS TO THE CHURCH 293 


said, the ushers and the heralds, has ten times 
more spiritual ground on which to base his ex- 
pectation, than have they for their unbelief who 
do not expect supernatural sanctifying strength 
for the believer, supernatural aid in preaching, 
exhortation, and prayer, for Pastors and gifted 
members, and supernatural converting power upon 
the minds of those who are yet of the world, 


CHAPTER IX. 
PRACTICAL LESSONS. 


AT one time we meant to dwell at considerable 
length upon practical lessons connected with our 
subject; but this book is already larger than we 
wished it to be, and we will therefore touch only 
three topics. We may learn a lesson on THE SOURCE 
OF POWER; one on THE WAY TO OBTAIN POWER; 
and one on THE SCALE ON WHICH OUR EXPECTA- 
TIONS OF SUCCESS SHOULD BE FRAMED. 


I.—The Source of Power. 


In the application of any instrument, no error 
can be more fatal than one that affects the source 
of power. ‘To recur to an illustration before used, 
any reasoning upon explosive weapons which as- 
sumed elasticity to be the source of power, must 
lead completely astray. If this is to be noted in 
all things, it is especially to be noted in what af- 
fects the regeneration of the world. In merely 
natural processes, persons proposing to affect the 


sentiments of mankind, must depend largely on 


their influence, their wealth, and their facilities. 


Christians frequently permit themselves to fall 
294 


ee ee 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 295 


into a state of mind in which the want of all, or 
any of these, is taken to be fatal to their prospects 
of success, and the acquisition of them to be the 
first step toward making any impression. But 
wealth, influence, and facilities, however great, 
never yet secured results in the spiritual conver- 
sion of men; while the most notable triumphs of 
Christianity have often been gained in the total 
absence of them all. 

Others, or the same men at different times, 
would rather allow their hopes to rest on order, 
talent, or truth. But neither are these the source 
of power. Order is as necessary in Christianity 
as are bones, ligaments, and skin in a man; 
talent is as necessary as brain, and truth as blood. 
But you may have all these, and have a paralytic; 
ay, may have them all, and have but a corpse. 
You must have both the breathing spirit and that 
indescribable something that we call “ power.” 
Indeed, the order of the Christian Church ought 
to be such, her outward framework so constructed, 
that she shall not be as a building, which, though 
it looks more cheerful when there is life within, 
yet will stand when there is none; but rather as 
a body, which falls the moment the spirit forsakes 
it, and tends to decomposition. No Church 
ought to be otherwise constructed than in entire 
dependence on the presence of the living Spirit in 
all her ministerial arrangements. Her frame 


296 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


ought to answer to no definition that would suit 
an inorganic body; but to answer exactly to the 
celebrated definition of an organic one; namely, 
“that wherein every part is mutually means and 
end.” The pervading presence of the Spirit 
should be assumed, so that, if it be absent, the 
pains of death shall instantly take hold upon 
her, and the cry be extorted, “Lord, save, or I 
perish!” 

We must again recall to mind that most wonder- 
ful silence of ten days—that long, long pause of 
the Commissioned Church in sight of the perish- 
ing world. Never should the solemnity of that 
silence pass from the thoughts of any of God’s 
people. It stands in the very fore-front of our 
history—the Lord’s most memorable and affecting 
protest beforehand—that no authority under 
heaven, that no training, that no ordination could 
qualify men to propagate the Gospel, without the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost. Each successive day 
of those solemn and silent ten, the perishing world 
might have knocked at the door of the Church, 
and asked, ‘“‘ What waitest thou for, O bride of the 
ascended Bridegroom? Why dost thou not say, 
‘Come’? Why leavest thou us to slumber on un- 
called, unwarned, unblessed, whilst thou, with thy 
good tidings, art tarrying inactive there? What 
waitest thou for?” and every moment the answer 
would have been, “ We are waiting to be ‘endued 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 297 


with power from on high;’ we are waiting to be 
‘baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ ” 

This is the one and the only source of our power. 
Without this, our wealth, influence, facilities, are 
ships of war and ammunition without guns or 
men; our order, talent, truth, are men and guns, 
without fire. We want in this age, above all 
wants, fire, God’s holy fire, burning in the hearts 
of men, stirring their brains, impelling their 
emotions, thrilling in their tongues, glowing in 
their countenances, vibrating in their actions, ex- 
panding their intellectual powers more than can 
ever be done by the heats of genius, of argument, 
or of party; and fusing all their knowledge, logic, 
and rhetoric into a burning stream. Every ac- 
cessory, every instrument of usefulness, the Church 
has now in such a degree and of such excellence as 
was never known in any other age; and we want 
but a supreme and glorious baptism of fire to ex- 
hibit to the world such a spectacle as would raise 
ten thousand hallelujahs to the glory of our King. 

Let but this baptism descend, and thousands 
of us who, up to this day, have been but com- 
monplace or weak Ministers, such as might easily 
pass from the memory of mankind, would then 
become mighty. Men would wonder at us, as if 
we had been made anew; and we should wonder, 
not at ourselves, but at the grace of God which 
could thus transform us. 


298 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Suppose we saw an army sitting down before a 
granite fort, and they told us that they intended 
to batter it down: we might ask them, “How?” 
They point to a cannon-ball; well, but there is 
no power in that; it is heavy, but not more than 
half a hundred, or perhaps a hundred, weight: if 
all the men in the army hurled it against the fort, 
they would make no impression. They say, “No; 
but look at the cannon.” Well, there is no power 
in that. A child may ride upon it, a bird may 
perch in its mouth; it is a machine, and nothing 
more. “But look at the powder.” Well, there is 
no power in that; a child may spill it, a sparrow 
may peck it. Yet this powerless powder, and 
powerless ball, are put into the powerless cannon— 
one spark of fire enters it—and then, in the 
twinkling of an eye, that powder is a flash of 
lightning and that ball a thunderbolt, which 
smites as if it had been sent from heaven. So is 
it with our Church machinery at this day: we 
have all the instruments necessary for pulling 
down strongholds, and O for the baptism of fire! 


II.—The way to Obtain Power. 


As to the way in which this power may be ob- 
tained, here we have only to recall the lesson of 
the Ten Days—*“ They continued with one accord 
in prayer and supplication.” Prayer earnest, 
prayer united, and prayer persevering, these are 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 299 


the conditions; and, these being fulfilled, we shall 
assuredly be “endued with power from on high.” 
We should never expect that the power will fall 
upon us just because we happen once to awake 
and ask for it. Nor have any community of 
Christians a right to look for a great manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit, if they are not all ready to join 
in supplication, and, “with one accord,’’ to wait 
and pray as if it were the concern of each one. 
The murmurer who always accounts for barren- 
ness in the Church by the faults of others, may be 
assured that his readiest way to spiritual power, if 
that be his real object, lies in uniting all, as one 
heart, to pray without ceasing. 

Above all, we are not to expect it without per- 
severing prayer. Prayer which takes the fact 
that past prayers have not yet been answered, as a 
reason for languor, has already ceased to be the 
prayer of faith. ‘To the latter, the fact that 
prayers remain unanswered, is only evidence that 
the moment of the answer is so much nearer. 
From first to last, the lessons and example of our 
Lord all tell us that prayer which cannot per- 
severe, and urge its plea importunately, and re- 
new, and renew itself again, and gather strength 
from every past petition, is not the prayer that 
will prevail. 

When John in the Apocalypse saw the Lamb on 


the throne, Jefore that throne were the seven lamps 
21 


300 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


of fire burning, “which are the seven Spirits of 
God sent forth into all the earth;” and it is only 
by waiting before that throne of grace that we 
become imbued with the holy fire; but he who 
waits there long and believingly, will imbibe that 
fire, and come forth, from his communion with 
God, bearing tokens of where he has been. For 
the individual believer, and, above all, for every 
laborer in the Lord’s vineyard, the only way to 
gain spiritual power is by secret waiting at the 
throne of God, for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 
Every moment spent in real prayer is a moment 
spent in refreshing the fire of God within the soul. 
We said before, that this fire cannot be simu- 
lated; nothing else will produce its effects. No 
more can the means of obtaining it be feigned. 
Nothing but the Lord’s own appointed means, 
nothing but “waiting at the throne,” nothing 
but keeping the heart under “the eyes of the 
Lamb,” to be again, and again, and again pene- 
trated by His Spirit, can put the soul into that 
condition, in which it is a meet instrument to 
impart the light and power of God to other men. 

When a lecturer on electricity wants to show an 
example of a human body surcharged with his 
fire, he places a person on a stool with glass legs. 
The glass serves to isolate him from the earth, 
because it will not conduct the fire—the electric 
fluid: were it not for this, however much might 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 301 


be poured into his frame, it would be carried 
away by the earth; but, when thus isolated from 
it, he retains all that enters him. You see no 
fire, you hear no fire; but you are told that it is 
pouring into him. Presently you are challenged 
to the proof—asked to come near, and hold your 
hand close to his person: when you do so, a spark 
of fire shoots out toward you. If thou, then, 
wouldst have thy soul surcharged with the fire of 
God, so that those who come nigh to thee shall 
feel some mysterious influence proceeding out 
from thee, thou’must draw nigh to the source of 
that fire, to the throne of God and of the Lamb, 
and shut thyself out from the world—that cold 
world, which so swiftly steals our fire away. 
Enter into thy closet, and shut to thy door, and 
there, isolated, “before the throne,” await the 
baptism; then the fire shall fill thee, and when 
thou comest forth, holy power will attend thee, 
and thou shalt labor, not in thine own strength, 
but “with demonstration of the Spirit, and with 
power.” 

As this is the only way for an individual to ob- 
tain spiritual power, so is it the only way for 
Churches. Prayer, prayer, all prayer—mighty, 
importunate, repeated, united prayer; the rich 
and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the 
fathers and the children, the Pastors and the 
people, the gifted and the simple, all uniting to 


Be THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


cry to God above, that He would come and affect 
them as in the days of the right hand of the Most 
High, and imbue them with the Spirit of Christ, 
and warm them, and kindle them, and make them 
as a flame of fire, and lay His right hand mightily 
on the sinners that surround them, and turn them 
in truth to Him. Such united and repeated sup- 
plications will assuredly accomplish their end, and 
“the power of God” descending will make every 
such company asa band of giants refreshed with 
new wine. 

If the source of our power, and the way to ob- 
tain it, be so plain, how can it be that the “ tongue 
of fire’ isso rare? What are the hindrances? Is 
it because, as many would seem to think, nothing 
is so difficult to obtain as the grace of the Holy 
Spirit? We often hear it said, All effort must be 
unsuccessful without the blessing of God, without 
the accompanying power of the Spirit; and the 
tone used indicates that it is therefore proper not 
to look for any great results, as if the accompany- 
ing power of the Spirit was the only thing not to 
be counted upon. The recognition of our im- 
potency without the Spirit, and of the absolute 
necessity of His presence and His power, is as 
needful as the recognition of the fact that, with- 
out sunshine and rain, all labor and all skill would 
fail to preserve the human race for one season. 
But the sunshine and the rain are precisely the — 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 303 


things which cost nothing, and on which we may 
constantly depend. So it is with the baptism and 
the power of the Holy Spirit. Freer than the air 
we breathe, freer than the rich sunbeams, freer 
than any of God’s other gifts, because it is the 
one which has cost Him most, and which blesses 
His children most, that gift is ever at hand; and 
when we have done what the Lord lays upon us to 
do, it is dishonoring to Him to cherish a secret 
feeling as if He, being good, not evil, was back- 
ward to pour out His Spirit, and to do good to 
His children. 

This feeling of unbelief, wherever cherished, 
must, on the principles of the Gospel, be fatal to 
all power. He alone who magnifies the freeness, 
the fulness, and the present efficacy of the Lord’s 
grace, can by the Holy Ghost accomplish won- 
ders. Trust, firm trust, straightforward, childlike 
trust, is the everlasting condition of all co-opera- 
tion with God. He will not use, He will not bless, 
He will not inhabit the heart that, at the mo- 
ment when it offers Him a request, says, “ 1 doubt 
Thee.”’ 

In this age of faith in the natural, and dis- 
inclination to the supernatural, we want especially 
to meet the whole world with this credo, “I be- 
lieve in the Holy Ghost.” I expect to see saints as 
lovely as any that are written of in the Scriptures— 
because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to 


304 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


see Preachers as powerful to set forth Christ evi- 
dently crucified before the eyes of men, as power- 
ful to pierce the conscience, to persuade, to con- 
vince, to convert, as any that ever shook the multi- 
tudes of Jerusalem, or Corinth, or Rome—because 
I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see 
Churches the members of which shall be severally 
endued with spiritual gifts, and every one moving 
in spiritual activity, animating and edifying one 
another, commending themselves to the conscience 
of the world by their good works, commending 
their Saviour to it by a heart-engaging testi- 
mony—because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I 
expect to see villages, where all the respectable 
people are now opposed to religion, the proprietor 
ungodly, the nominal Pastor worldly, all that take 
a lead set against living Christianity—to see such 
villages summoned, disturbed, divided, and then 
reunited, by the subduing of the whole population 
to Christ—because I believe in the Holy Ghost. 
I expect to see cities swept from end to end, their 
manners elevated, their commerce purified, their 
politics Christianized, their criminal population 
reformed, their poor made to feel that they dwell 
among brethren —righteousness in the streets, 
peace in the homes, an altar at every fireside—be- 
cause I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect the 
world to be overflowed with the knowledge of God; 
the day to come when no man shall need to say 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 305 


to his neighbor, “ Know thou the Lord;” but 
when all shall know Him, “from the least unto 
the greatest;” east and west, north and south, | 
uniting to praise the name of the one God, and 
the one Mediator—because I believe in the Holy 
Ghost. 

Unbelief and neglect of prayer generally go to- 
gether as preventives of spiritual power. Let 
all of us who are painfully conscious that the 
results just indicated will never be attained by 
the instrumentality of men, in the condition in 
which we are, simply ask ourselves, How long, 
how often, how importunately have we waited at 
the throne of the Saviour for the outpouring of 
the Spirit? Let our closets answer. ‘‘ The eyes 
of the Lamb,” that are looking through us now, 
have noted. Oh! is it any wonder that ofttimes 
we have been powerless, and ofttimes have had 
but ‘“‘a little strength ’’? 

Want of true faith and neglect of prayer are 
sure to make place for faith in the mstrument, 
instead of in the power. When we are not living 
near the throne, our minds become occupied with 
questions of order, of talent, or of truth; or, if 
we sink into yet a lower state, with questions of 
facility, or influence, or wealth. This Church 
reform will be followed by great good; the clear 
development of such or such a doctrine would 
bring us revival; more lustre or strength of talent 


306 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


in the ministry would insure progress. We only 
wait the removal of such and such hindrances to 
open this door; for the supply of pecuniary means, 
and we shall see good done there; or for the ac- 
cession to the Church of some person of influence, 
and God’s work will prosper yonder. Faith is 
sadly wasted when bestowed on such things. Give 
them their right value—never underrate them— 
place them where God has placed them; but the 
fact that you trust in them shows that your heart 
is wrong. Wait not for these—for the power is 
not in them—but for the baptism of fire. 

Among the hindrances which will prevent any 
one from having the “tongue of fire,” none acts 
more directly than any misuse of the “tongue” 
itself. If the door of the lips be not guarded, if 
uncharitable or idle speech be indulged, if politi- 
cal or party discussion be permitted to excite heats, 
if “ foolish talking or jesting”’ be a chosen method 
of display, it is not to be supposed that the same 
tongue will be the medium wherein the sacred fire 
of the Spirit will delight to dwell. Who has ever 
worn at the same time the reputation of a trifler 
and of a man powerful to search consciences? 

Another fatal hindrance is any kind of sensual 
indulgence. Whatever gives the least ascendancy 
to the body over the spirit must gradually subdue, 
and ultimately extinguish, the fire in the heart. 
This applies to all sloth, to every luxurious habit, 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 307 


every artificial appetite, and all the pleasures of 
the table. It is not a little remarkable that while 
at the Day of Pentecost the people, on seeing the 
excitement and animation of the ee istians, said, 
“ They are filled with new wine;” Paul himself 
says to us, “ Be not drunk with wine, wherein is 
excess: but be filled with the Spirit.” In both 
these cases there is a suggestion, however in- 
direct, yet unquestionably a suggestion of some 
analogy between the condition of being “drunk 
with wine” and that of being “filled with the 
Spirit.” 

Nor do we need to seek far for the grounds of 
that analogy. To men of the world wine igs a re- 
sort when they want something above their natural 
strength of mind or body, and in it they seek 
three things—strength, cheering, and mental 
elevation. Under its-influence they will do more 
work than they could otherwise, they will cast off 
their cares, and their mental powers will reach a 
state which they themselves call “ inspiration.” 
That worldly orators, even of the highest reputa- 
tion, often seek in wine such animation of their 
powers as is necessary to great success, is only too 
well known. ‘The physical tendency to seek eleva- 
tion in such a source cannot be even slightly 
yielded to, without fatally affecting the “tongue 
of fire.” 

Every Christian who wishes to retain the life 


308 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


of God in his soul, must hold all the enjoyments 
of the table under a strict law of regard to heaith 
and to temperance. For strength, for cheering, 
and for mental elevation, such as an extraordinary 
affliction or public effort may demand, he must 
look alone to power from on high, to the strength, 
and comfort, and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
The bare idea of seeking any of these in wine im- 
plies a heart already far fallen into the bondage of 
the flesh. Even without going so far, one may 
easily pass the bounds of moderation, and drink, 
not for health, but for pleasure. If the man who 
drinks to intoxication is miserable and pitiable, 
he who has learned the bad secret of “ how far he 
can go,” and who even acts upon it, although he 
may never be drunk, is daily intemperate. In 
one aspect, his social influence is the most dan- 
gerous of all; for, while one who totally abstains, 
and one who drinks under a rigid rule of regard 
for health and moderation, may each contend that 
they are setting the wisest example that can be set, 
and while the drunkard may truly say that his very 
excess 18 a warning to all about him, he who 
habitually shows that he drinks as much as is safe, 
ig alure and an enticement to push indulgence 
as far as it can be done without wreck of char- 
acter. 

Another fatal hindrance is what may be called, 
“aiming at literary effect.” When preaching, 


| 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 309 


praying, or any other religious exercise of the 
tongue, is ruled by the idea of composition, it loses 
the character of a Divine gift. Under that idea, 
‘utterance especially is by the aid of the Holy Spirit. 
With those who look at Christian preaching as an 
exercise of natural talent, we enter into no discus- 
sion. We speak only to those who are seeking the 
“tongue of fire,” who believe that real Christian 
preaching is effected only by the help of God. To 
them, and to ourselves, we say, that nothing will 
more surely steal away the fire from our sentences, 
than anxiety to deliver them just as they were 
pre-composed, or to pre-compose them with studi- 
ous regard to literary grace. Study of style, of 
words, of the force, forms, and laws of language, 
we of course recommend. Efforts on the part of 
every one to gain the best style of which his nature 
admits—the tersest, strongest, clearest, briefest— 
we equally recommend. Seeking, like Bunyan, 
for “picked and packed words,” is the instinct of 
a teacher. ven the study of the art of speaking, 
against which the vulgar prejudice is so strong, 
we would with Wesley and Whitefield, encourage. 
Mouthing elocutionists may have brought it into 
disrepute, but that is no reason why hundreds of 
us should be maimed in health before mid-life by 
public speaking, when we might have done as 
much work, and done it better, without the least 
injury, had we availed ourselves of the science of 


310 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


those who have philosophically studied and taught 
upon the voice.* | 
While, however, we contend that it is the duty 
of all who take any part in teaching, to labor to 
the uttermost for every qualification helpful to 
their work, two things are to be forever and 
guardedly shut out. The one is, aiming at giv- 
ing intellectual pleasure, instead of producing re- 
ligious impression; the other, being careful about 
words in the pulpit, so as to interfere with de- 
pendence upon God for utterance. In the study, 
attention to style ought to be with a view, not to 
beauty, but to power. In the pulpit, all thought 
of style is thought wasted, and even worse. ‘The 
gift of prophesying in its very ideal excludes rely- 
ing for utterance upon a manuscript or upon 
memory. It is the delivery of truth by the help 
of God. ‘The feeling of every man standing up 
*TIt is often assumed that speaking is a natural exercise, 
and therefore needs no instruction. The word “speaking ” 
covers a fallacy. Conversation in a moderate tone, and at 
short intervals, is a natural exercise of the voice; public 
speaking, in an elevated tone, and for an hour together, is 
an artificial one. Except in very rare cases of persons sin- 
gularly favored by nature, this artificial exercise is never 
performed with the ease of the natural one; and how often 
it impairs, and even destroys, health is too notorious to need 
any mention. Such writers as Mr. Cull, and Dr. Rush, show 
that under proper training public speaking may become as 
easy and as healthy for persons of sound organs as singing 


is; and to the neglect of this we owe the loss, in their prime, 
of many of the best and ablest preachers that ever lived. 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 311 


in the Lord’s name ought to be, “Iam not here 
to acquit myself well, nor to deliver a good dis- 
course; but after having made my best efforts to 
study and to digest the truth, I am here to Say 
just what God may enable me to say, to be en- 
larged or to be straitened, according as He may be 
pleased to give me utterance or not.” 

With this feeling of the preacher all appear- 
ances ought to correspond. It ought to be mani- 
fest that, while he has done what in him lies to 
be thoroughly furnished, he is trusting for utter- 
ance to help from above, and not ensuring it by 
natural means—either a manuscript or memory. 
We put these two together, because we do not 
see that any distinction really exists between 
them. The plea that the manuscript is more 
honest than memoriter preaching, has some force, 
but certainly not much; for he that reads from 
his memory is, to the feeling and instinct of his 
hearers, as much reading as he who reads from 
his manuscript. In neither case are the thoughts 
and feelings gushing straight from the mind, and 
clothing themselves as they come. The mind is 
taking up words from paper or from memory, 
and doing its best to animate them with feeling. 
Even intellectually, the operation is essentially 
different from speaking, and the difference is felt 
by all. “For literary purposes, for intellectual 
gratification, both have a decided advantage over 


312 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


speaking; but for the purpose of pleading, en- 
treating, winning, and creating a sense of fellow- 
ship, for impelling and arousing, for doing good— 
speaking is the natural, that is, the Creator’s, in- 
strument. 

We never say, nor think of saying, that God 
will not bless sermons read, either from the manu- 
script or from the memory; for we are sure that 
both these modes are resorted to by holy and 
earnest servants of His, who seek His blessing, 
and obtain it to the saving of many souls. All 
we say of reading, either from the manuscript or 
the memory, is, that it is not Scriptural preach- 
ing. It is not ministering after the mode of 
Pentecostal Christianity; it is a departure from 
Scriptural precedent, an adoption of a lower order 
of public ministration, and a solemn declaration 
that security of utterance gained by natural sup- 
ports, is preferred over a liability to be humiliated 
by trusting to the help of the Lord. It has its 
clear advantages, and its clear losses. It secures 
a gain of elegance, at the cost of ease—of finish, 
at the cost of freedom—of precision, at that of 
power—and of literary pleasure, at that of re- 
ligious impressiveness. 

A literary ideal of preaching is vicious. Half 
educated people pride themselves on admiring 
what they consider intellectual, or “splendid.” 
To men of real mind, and real education, aiming 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 313 


at literary effect is as distasteful, on the one hand, 
as are traces of carelessness, looseness, or vul- 
garity, on the other. Men of great talent or re- 
finement, when speaking great truths, under holy 
inspiration, must be eloquent or pleasing. But 
an “intellectual treat” is far from being the ideal 
of preaching. We have heard efforts of this kind 
greatly praised, even by aged and venerable min- 
isters, which, when we look back upon them, after 
years have elapsed, we feel ought not to have been 
called sermons at all. They were discourses, 
which showed how a certain subject could be 
treated, but which were never meant to do any 
work. An acute and profound philosopher, look- 
ing upon the pulpit from the Chair of the His- 
torical Professor, treats this point in the following 
remarkable words :— 

“Compare, I pray you, Gentlemen, the sacred 
eloquence of the sixth century with modern pulpit 
eloquence, even in its most palmy days, in the 
seventeenth century. I said just now, that in 
the seventh and eighth centuries the character of 
literature had been that it ceased to bea litera- 
ture—that it had become in fact a power, that in 
writing and speaking men concerned themselves 
only with positive and immediate results, that 
they sought neither science nor intellectual pleas- 
ure, and that on this account the age had pro- 
duced nothing but sermons or similar works. 


314 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


This fact, which shows itself in literature in gen- 
eral, is imprinted upon the sermons themselves. 
Those of modern times have a character evidently 
more literary than practical. The orator aspires 
much more after beauty of language, after the 1n- 
tellectual satisfaction of his auditory, than to act 
upon the deeps of their souls, to produce real 
effects, notable reforms, efficacious conversions. 
Nothing of this sort—nothing of the literary 
character in the sermons of which I have just been 
speaking to you; not one thought of expressing 
themselves nicely, of combining images and ideas 
with art. The orator goes to the point; he wants 
to do a work; he turns, and turns again in the 
same circle; he has no fear of repetition, of 
familiarity, not even of vulgarity. He speaks 
briefly, but recommences every morning. ‘THIS 
IS NOT SACRED ELOQUENCE; IT IS RELIGIOUS 
POWER.” * 

Whenever we are tempted to think that fruitful- 
ness is only to be looked for in connection with 
superior attainments, the image of Peter preach- 
ing in Jerusalem, and of that vast multitude in 
tears before him, should rise into our view. With 
what reverence, not unmixed with sorrow, do we 
often look back on Preachers of days now gone, 
perhaps on some whom our own ears have blessed 


*GuizoT’s Histoire de la Civilisation, Vol. Il., p. 24. 
Sixth Paris Edition. 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 315 


when we heard them, but more on those of whose 
mighty voices we have caught faint echoes, sound- 
ing in the bosoms of hoary men who heard them 
in their youth, and have never ceased to hear 
them, though their tongues have long been silent! 
When noting our own poor efforts; when seeing 
how tamely the precepts of Sinai, or the songs of 
Bethlehem have fallen upon men from our lips; 
seeing that, after our closest thinking we have 
seemed as those who beat the air; that after seek- 
ing converts, we have only gained credit; that, 
when looking for multitudes to be seized with the 
thought, “ What must I do to be saved?” we have 
only sent them away to discuss our faults or our 
merits, with perchance here and there a heart 
touched and contrite—when years have thus passed 
away, and no stronghold of sin brought down, no 
province completely conquered from the Prince of 
darkness, no great awakening to show that there 
was a Power and a Gop in the midst of the 
Church—when we have seen all this, and much 
more alike thereto, has not our disposition often 
been to open a calculation as to our own abilities 
and the difficulties before us, concluding, on the 
whole, that such as we need not expect to do 
things which only the mighty could do? How 
could lips like ours move mankind? True, Apos- 
tles and Prophets moved them. True, White- 
field and Wesley, and hundreds of their coadjutors, 
22 


O16 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


hear to our own days, and in our own country, 
moved them. “But then they were the wonders of 
their age, the seraphim of earth. But what made 
them seraphim? ‘They were once no mightier 
than others as to converting souls. Unbaptized 
with fire, or but slightly touched, their tongues 
might have charmed, fascinated, set the world dis- 
cussing their gifts and extolling their abilities; 
but they would never have shot fires into the souls 
of men, burned by which the stolid would roar, 
and the stoical melt, the sedate smite upon his 
breast, and the corrupt cleanse himself “from all 
filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.” Perhaps 
without the baptism of fire they would never have 
gained even the airy fame of orators. Their very 
eloquence may have come chiefly from the Spirit 
of God. At all events, it was that fire which 
raised the orator into the Apostle, and made their 
words sound as if Christ’s first messengers were 
risen from the dead. 

The spectacle of Peter preaching at Jerusalem 
answers ten thousand arguments of unbelief. 
Who is that Galilean peasant, and who are that 
group beside him? They are men of like passions 
with ourselves. In nature, in gifts, in early op- 
portunities, they cannot be ranked above the aver- 
age of mankind. Even though they have been 
favored with the personal teaching and society of 
Christ for three whole years, they had not, up to 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 317 


this period, shown any extraordinary superiority 
of character. They have not been even without 
faults; they have had their disputes among them- 
selves, their unbelief, their faint-heartedness, their 
strifes about the things of the world, their “false 
brethren;”’ yet are they endued with a power of 
speech which passes all previously conceived reach 
of eloquence. 

Is it rational, when looking up to the Spirit 
which wrought this in them, to doubt whether or 
not it is within His power to baptize His servants 
now living, with such a baptism as would change 
the ordinary into the extraordinary, the feeble 
into the mighty? Whether it is easier for Him 
to say, “Speak with many tongues,” or to say, “I 
will give thee a mouth and wisdom which all thine 
adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or to re- 
sist?” The former Hz has said, and common 
men at once received the power; the latter He has 
said, and the same common men received the 
power. ‘The former power we do not seek; but 
all of us who have any heart for our Master’s 
service, any real intention to bear a part in the 
battle for the rescue of mankind, do desire in our 
very hearts, yea, long with mournful longing for 
a tongue of fire to tell of the love or the Saviour, 
and of the woe of sin, in such tones that the dead 
ear shall tingle. Is He not able to give the gift 
now, as He gave it then? Is the distrust of His 


318 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


power, in this respect, which we find so common; 
this counting on our own impotence as a life-long 
companion; this speaking of what we ought to 
expect, as if our power must halt where our natural 
abilities halt; this thinking it really humble to 
expect little or no fruit; this thinking it meek to 
be happy without fruit—is all this a fit answer to 
the baptism, and a fit memorial of the tongue of 
fire? Do we not there see the Spirit answering 
forever all doubts as to what ordinary men can 
be made, and proclaiming to all who would bear a 
message from God, that if they will only wait until 
they are “endued with power from on high,’ the 
effect which of all others will show the working of 
that power within them will be this—that they 
shall be raised above themselves, and made to 
speak with a mouth and wisdom which, all who 
know them will know, were not within their nat- 
ural endowments or attainments? 


IIIl.—The Scale on which our Expectations of Success Should 
be Framed. 


In our age, invention by aid of natural science 
often seems to leap almost within the bounds of 
the supernatural. The impossibilities of our 
fathers are disappearing, one becoming a traffic 
and another a pastime. This has produced a state 
of mind in which nothing seems impossible to 
natural science. Concurrently with this has 


es: te 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 319 


arisen a tendency to bring spiritual progress and 
action within natural bounds. We are proud of 
our knowledge of the laws of the natural king- 
dom, and impatient of any phenomena which can- 
not be judged by them. Yet we do not object to 
judging the vegetable kingdom by laws totally 
different from those which we apply to the min- 
eral, and the animal by laws totally different from 
what we apply to the vegetable, and the pervasive 
fluids * by laws different from those we apply to 
any of those three kingdoms. ‘To shrink from 
the marvels of vegetable life because they are un- 
accountable on chemical principles, or from those 
of instinct because they are unfathomable mys- 
teries on botanical principles, or from those of in- 
tellect because they are inexplicable by the laws 
of natural history, or from the mysteries of light 
because they cannot be metaphysically analyzed 
and conditioned, would not be more unreasonable 
than to shrink from marvels in the spiritual king- 
dom, because they cannot be judged by the laws 
of the natural. The supernatural has its own 
laws, and there 7s a supernatural. 

Instead of seeking to keep down spiritual move- 
ments to the level of natural explanation, in an 


* Water, air, light, electricity, etec., which cannot be con- 
veniently classed under any of the three divisions—vegetable, 
mineral, and animal—usually taken to comprise all natural 
objects. 


B20 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


age when natural marvels reach almost to miracles, 
we ought rather to be impelled to pray that they 
may put on a more striking character of super- 
natural manifestation. To-day, more by far is 
necessary to carry into the mind of the multitude 
a clear conviction, “It is the Hand of God,” than 
was necessary in other ages. When men saw few 
wonders from natural science, they readily ascribed 
each wonder to Divine agency; but now that they 
are accustomed to see them daily, moral wonders 
must swell beyond all pretext of natural explana- 
tion, before they are felt to be from God. Is our 
footing firm? Do we stand, or do we tremble? 
Is Christianity to seat herself in the circle of nat- 
ural agency, or to arise from the dust, and prove 
that there is a God in Israel? Are we to shrink 
from things extraordinary? Are we to be afraid 
of anything that would make sceptical or prayer- 
less men mock? Are we to desire that the Spirit 
shall use us and work in us just to such a degree 
as will never bring a sneer upon us—to pray, as a 
continental writer represents some as meaning, 
“Give us of the Holy Spirit; but not too much; 
lest the people should say that we are full of new 
wine” ? * 

To Christianity this is pre-eminently the age of 
opportunity. Never before did the world offer 
to her anything like the same open field as at this 


* Pasteur Augustin Bost. 


Se ee a a 


a © oe 


PRACTICAL LESSONS o2L 


moment. Hyen a single century from the present 
time, how much more limited was her access to 
the minds of men! Within our own favored 
country, a zealous preacher would then have been 
driven away from many a sphere, where now he 
would be hailed. On the continent of Europe, the 
whole of France has been opened to the preaching 
of the Word, though under some restraints. In 
Belgium, Sardinia, and other fields, it may now be 
said that the Word of God is not bound. A cen- 
tury ago the Chinese empire, the Mohammedan 
world, and Africa, containing between them such 
a preponderating majority of the human race, 
were all closed against the Gospel of Christ. China 
is open at several points. The whole empire of 
the Mogul is one field where opportunity and pro- 
tection invite the evangelist. Turkey itself has 
been added to the spheres wherein he may labor. 
Around the wild shores of Africa, and far into 
her western, eastern, and southern interior, out- 
posts of Christianity have been established. 
Wide realms beyond invite her onward. In the 
South Seas, several regions which a hundred years 
ago had not been made known by the voyages of 
Cook, are now regularly occupied. Could the 
Churches of England and America send forth to- 
morrow a hundred thousand preachers of the 
Gospel, each one of them might find a sphere, al- 
ready opened by the strong hand of Providence, 


322 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


where a century ago none of them could haye 
come without danger. 

The age, if not so remarkable for agency as for 
opportunity, is yet very remarkable in this respect, 
when compared with any that has preceded it. 
While, on the one hand, we may well humble our- 
selves that, after so long a lapse of time, Christian 
men are so few, and Christian operations so feeble, 
yet, measuring our own day with that of the 
generation that went before us, we may devoutly 
magnify our God. Any one of the three great 
divisions of Christians in England—the Estab- 
lished Church, the Methodists, or the Dissenters— 
can this day furnish a number of faithful Ministers 
teaching the truth in the fear of God, and wishful 
to be the instruments in saving souls, supported 
by a number of spiritually-minded laymen ready 
for every good work, such that, could they have 
been presented to John Wesley as the entire force 
of godly men in the country, would have made 
him feel as if the army for the whole world’s con- 
quest was already raised. Scotland alone could 
now produce a host of loyal soldiers ready and 
able to wage the Redeemer’s war, such as in his 
day would have appeared to him almost sufficient 
to conclude the conquest. Ireland, too, would 
offer in this respect an amazing advance. In 
France, where, at the conclusion of the great 
Peace, scarcely any earnest preachers could be 


PRACTICAL LESSONS BAO 


found, they may now be counted by hundreds; 
and in Germany, notwithstanding all its mists 
and its blights, not a few are growing up in 
vigor. 

Whether for the direct labors of the pulpit, 
for united movements of enlightenment, or the 
ministering of gentle relief to the wants of human 
society, never, never did the sun shine upon so 
much agency, so much organization, so much 
liberty, so much earnest effort. Could we indulge 
ourselves by forming our own world, and only 
think of all good men, good societies, and good 
works, on which the eye may rest, we might rejoice 
with unbroken joy, proclaim the full advent of 
the kingdom of God, and feel ourselves launched 
on a benign and brotherly age. But alas! alas! 
the vast world rolls on, a turbid and a freezing 
stream. When we look first at our own little 
land, then at the broad earth, we find, for one who 
fears God and works righteousness, thousands 
who forget God and work wickedness. Christian 
agency exists not, therefore, as some amiable theo- 
rists would seem to think, chiefly for training 
those who are born Christians, or made Christians 
in baptism, and who need nothing more than 
Church ordinances, and an open heaven when 
they die. It is an agency raised up to carry out 
the great work of conversion which the Lord has 
begun within the lands of Christendom, and then 


ayes! THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


to bear onward the banner until every nation 
under heaven bows under it. 

It is also an age of progress, as much as of op- 
portunity or of agency. What an advance has 
Christianity made, as to the impress upon our na- 
tional manners, within the last century! On our 
highest classes and on our lowest, on those who 
love God and those who love Him not, she has im- 
posed many restraints. The vices which remain 
are every day made more hideous to the public eye. 
How different the amount of piety in officers and, 
men developed by the horrors of the late war, from 
what was ever known in an English army before! 
How different the spiritual condition of many of 
our rural and manufacturing districts from what 
they were a century ago! What a change in the 
morals of the Court, in the temperance of private 
entertainments! How much more promising the 
aspect of Ireland! How much more animated 
the religion of Scotland! What an incalculable 
advance in America! And within that time the 
West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, the Society 
{slands, the Sandwich Islands, the Friendly Isl- 
ands, the Navigator’s Islands, a considerable part 
of Feejee, and tracts of Southern and Western 
Africa, may be written down as provinces added to 
Christendom. Though in some of these places 
much ungodliness remains, yet in most of them 
a far more promising state of things exists than 


PRACTICAL LESSONS a2 


was known in any country between the first days 
of Christianity, and the last century. 

In other countries beginnings have been made 
and first-fruits gathered; as, for instance, in India, 
China, and Northern Africa. At the same time, 
every system of religion not calling itself Chris- 
tian has decayed. Mohammedanism, Brahman- 
ism, Buddhism, and Paganism have lost territory, 
adherents, and power. Altogether, it may be 
questioned whether even the progress of the first 
century has not been equalled, as to positive 
amount, by that of the last. But, when we look 
at the agents, means, and facilities enjoyed during 
the last century compared with the first, and at 
the rapidity with which believers have multiplied 
themselves in both periods, we at once feel that, 
as to propagating power in the face of adverse 
circumstances, and small resources, there is no 
comparison between them. 

It is, on the one hand, as wrong and as danger- 
ous to overlook the success which God has given 
to His word in the last age, or the unparalleled 
openings which promise to the Church future con- 
quest, as it is, on the other, to repose on our pres- 
ent possessions as if the conquest was achieved. 
What has been done is enough to excite our live- 
liest gratitude; but if we dwell on it alone, we 
become enervated and careless. What remains to 
be done is enough to excite our deepest solicitude; 


326 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


but if we look at it alone, we become dispirited 
and powerless. Even in England everything is 
stained; our commerce corrupt; our politics 
earthy; our social manners chiefly formed after 
the will of “the god of this world;” our streets 
crying shame upon us; our hamlets, many of 
them, dark, ignorant, and immoral; our towns 
debauched and drunken. 

Amid this much good exists, in which we do 
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice; but oh! the evil, 
the evil is, day by day, breaking thousands of 
hearts, ruining thousands of characters, and de- 
stroying thousands of souls! Looking abroad be- 
yond the one little sphere of Britain and America, 
which we proud boasters of the two nations are 
prone to look upon as being near the whole 
world—though we are not one-twentieth of the 
human race—how dreary and how lonely does the 
soul of the Christian feel, as it floats in imagina- 
tion over the rest of the earth! That Europe, 
so learned, so splendid, so brave—what misery is 
by its firesides! what stains upon its conscience! 
what superstition, stoicism, or despair around its 
death-beds! And yonder bright old Asia, where 
the “tongue of fire” first spoke—how rare and 
how few are the scenes of moral beauty which 
there meet the eye! Instead of the family, the 
seraglio; instead of religion, superstition; in- 
stead of peace, oppression; instead of enterprise, 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 327 


war; instead of morals, ceremonies; instead of a 
God, idols; instead of refinement and growth, cor- 
ruption and collapse: here, there, thinly sown and 
scarcely within sight one of the other, a school, a 
book, a man of God—one star ina sky of dark- 
ness. And poor Africa! what is to become of the 
present generation of her sons? Thinly around 
her coasts, are beginnings of good things; but oh! 
the blood and darkness, and woe, and base super- 
stition, and the miserable cruelties, under which 
the majority of her youth are now trained, amid 
which her old men are going down to the graye! 
All this existed a century ago, but was not 
then known as we know it now. The world is 
not yet explored by the Church, much less occu- 
pied; but the exploration at least is carried go far, 
that we know its plagues as our fathers knew them 
not; and if our hearts were rightly affected, we 
should weep over them as they never wept; for, al- 
though the spread of Christianity has greatly mul- 
tiplied the number of Christians, the increase of 
population has been such, that more men are sinning 
and suffering now than were a hundred years ago. 
Taking the forces of the Church, comparing 
them with the length and breadth of the world, and 
then asking, “Are these ever to be the means of 
converting all?” we feel that only the promise of 
God could inspire such a hope. But that promise 
is so confirmed, illustrated, and exalted by the 


328 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


success of the past century, that when we look 
back to the few faithful men in this country and 
in America, men in different circumstances and 
of different views, who then began in earnest to 
call the Churches to their work, and see how far 
their labors and those of their spiritual sons have 
advanced the kingdom of Christ beyond where it 
stood then, we are led to say, “Suppose that all 
the good men, now loving God and desiring His 
glory, were but to be multiplied in equal ratio 
during the next century, as those few have been 
during the last century; what an amazing stride 
would be made toward the conversion of the whole 
world!” 

Is this too much to expect? Are we to conclude 
that the force of the animating Spirit is spent, 
and that an age of feebleness must succeed to one 
of power? ‘To do so is fearfully to disbelieve at 
once the goodness and the faithfulness of our God. 
Some say that, because populations have become 
familiarized with the truths of the Gospel, we are 
not to expect the same converting effects as when 
those truths were new. If this be so, we had 
better make way for a generation of rationalists 
and formalists, to prepare the ground again for 
spiritual cultivation! Some say that, because the 
age 1s so educated, intellectual, scientific, and in- 
quisitive, men are not so susceptible of the influ- 
ence of Christianity. Then shall we wait for an 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 329 


age less enlightened and less educated? Some say 
that the age is so unduly active, forcing enterprise 
and commerce to the point of absorbing every 
man, till religion is pushed aside. Must we then 
wait for a duller and more lethargic time? Some 
say that the Lord does not give us great success 
lest we should be uplifted. Is it His way to pro- 
mote humility by giving small results to great 
agencies, or by giving great results to small ones? 
And would not results after the Pentecostal scale 
make any of our agencies seem small? These are 
miserable withs wherewith to bind the giant 
Church of God. Away with them every one! 
After going round all the reasons which one hears 
ordinarily assigned for the greater direct success 
of preachers in the last century than now, our 
mind finds rest only in that one reason, which 
carries a world of rebuke and of humiliation to 
ourselves: they produced greater effects, simply 
because of the greater power of God within them. 

Kyery ray of Gospel truth that exists in any man 
is on our side. All intelligence, all intellectual 
activity; all vigor of character, are more for us, 
than their opposites would be. In fact, they are 
very much the fruit, the indirect and secondary 
fruit, of the past triumphs of religion; for it is 
impossible that true godliness shall spread among 
any people, without stimulating their intellectual 
and social energies. It is hard to imagine a satire 


330 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


on the Gospel more bitter than that it should be 
powerful when new to men, and impotent when 
familiar; that it should be good for the half bar- 
barous, but not for those whom itself had refined; 
capable of captivating the inert, but incapable of 
commanding the masculine and the energetic. 
We expect ages not less instructed in Christian 
doctrine, but far more instructed; not intellectu- 
ally duller, but more active; not darker as to 
science and literature, but inconceivably brighter; 
not slower as to invention, enterprise, and prog- 
ress, but more vigorous by far. And am I to 
turn to “the glorious Gospel of the blessed God,” 
whereto I feel that I and mine, my kindred, my 
country, the race from which I have sprung, the 
lands in which I have travelled, are all indebted 
for their purest and brightest things—and say to 
it, “ When these bright ages come, thou shalt lag 
behind, perhaps recollected as one of the infantine 
instructors of the world, but distanced by the prog- 
ress of man?” Let those who assign reasons for 
our want of fruitfulness which fairly sow the seeds 
of rationalism, prepare to render an account when 
the fruit of their sowing comes to be reaped. 
There is a natural tendency in any movement 
to lose intensity as it gains surface. When godli- 
ness becomes the habit of large numbers, it is not 
according to the laws of human nature that it 
should retain, in every individual, all the fervor 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 331 


which it must maintain, in order to exist at all, 
when it is the peculiarity of an extremely few. 
But if this fact is to be recognized, it must be 
remembered that the disadvantage which it pre- 
sents 1s easily overcome by the power of grace; 
and, indeed, a natural counterpoise to this mathe 
ing Pedency in practical religion, is offered in an 
equally natural accumulative tendency. That 
decrease of distinction between the Church and 
the world which is so often noticed, does not 
wholly arise from the Church becoming less Chris- 
tian, but partly also from the world becoming less 
wicked. The testimony of a large number of 
decided men, gradually and silently imposes on 
the world a respect for Christian principles; till 
the world tacitly accepts many.of its moral laws 
and social standards at the hands of the Church. 
Every concession of this kind is an advantage to 
those Christians who mean to conquer all; while 
it is a seduction to those who repose in hie idea 
of converting a small section of the people, leay- 
ing the rest to live in sin. 

Put the ungodly in a minority, then vice be- 
comes a social as well as a spiritual blemish, and 
religion an outward as well as an inward comfort. 
As the multitude of Christians goes on increasing, 
there is accumulative power of example, accumula- 
tive power of teaching, accumulative power of 


JPN asp accumulative power of Christian training 
ae 


332 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


in families, accumulative power of purity in habits, 
all tending in the one direction—to bring the 
public sentiment under the dominion of Christ. 
Towns and villages exist in this country where, 
- within the memory of living men, very few godly 
persons were to be found; but now one-tenth, one- 
seventh, and even one-fifth in some cases, of their 
adult population are professing to follow Christ, 
and living more or less worthily of that profes- 
sion. Can any man help feeling that the uncon- 
verted people in such a town are much more likely 
to be converted, than those living where the pro- 
portion of the godly is not more than one in a 
hundred, or one in a thousand? Who would not 
feel—who would not practically acknowledge the 
feeling—of the accumulative power of Christian 
progress, if he had to decide in which of two towns 
his unconverted son should settle for life—one 
with a believer to every thousand of the popula- 
tion, or one with a believer to every ten? He 
would instantly say, “In the latter place the pros- 
pects of my son’s conversion are vastly greater 
than in the other.” What we should feel in an 
individual case, we ought to feel on the great scale, 
: ought to gather strength and hope, not feebleness, 
from past successes, and to become especially im- 
patient of the continuance of sinners in those 
fields where notable triumphs of grace have already 
been achieved. What the Canaanites were to 


PRACTICAL LESSONS ooo, 


the Israelites of old, the unconverted dwelling in 
our towns and villages are to us at this day. 
hey confuse and weaken us, they allure, they 
ensnare us, they lead our children astray, they rob 
us of the fruit of our schools, they damp the zeal 
of our young converts, they entice families into 
worldly practices, they tempt our tradesmen, they 
infect our churches; and never, until they are 
totally extirpated, can peace and righteousness 
flourish in our coasts. Impatient of their ob- 
stinacy everywhere, we ought to be especially so 
where victories, won by those who have preceded 
us, leave us comparatively little to do: for the up- 
hill fight has been fought, the vantage-ground 
gained, and now for the power to complete the 
triumph! The entire conversion of England and 
America, within the next fifty years, would not be 
so great a work for the Christians now existing, 
as the progress made within the last hundred years 
has been for the Christians then existing. Is it 
rational to believe that God will less bless His 
servants in this nineteenth century than in the 
one that is gone, if they be equally faithful? or 
that He will shower on this generation of ours less 
marked benedictions than He did on the one to 
whom we are indebted for so much? 


et 


Dot THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


IV.—The Conversion of the Whole World Possible. 


The single consideration of past progress suffices 
to prove that, on the ground of experience, we are 
not warranted to conclude that the conversion of 
the whole world is impossible. Much as may be 
argued from the slowness of the past progress of 
Christianity, the last century has so changed the 
aspect of affairs, as now to cast the weight of the 
argument from experience decisively into the scale 
of hope. Many, however, will continue to look 
upon any consistent expectation of the general con- 
version of men as illusory; the objections of some 
resting on their views of the constancy of human 
nature, certain, they think, hereafter, as hereto- 
fore, to present great numbers of unconquerable 
opponents to holiness; while others take higher 
ground, and believe that the general conversion of 
our race is contrary to the purpose of God. 

When the question, “Is the conversion of the 
whole world possible?” is fairly put, the plain 
answer to it is obviously this: “It is possible, un- 
less it be contrary to the will of God.” If He has 
ordained that it is not to be, an infinite obstacle 
opposes it; if He has not so ordained, the obstacles 
which oppose it are finite, and therefore conquer- 
able. Christians can overcome all things but a de- 
cree of God. 

Has He, then, given us any declaration that He 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 335 


does not intend to renew the earth, as a whole, in 
righteousness? We do not mean to hold any 
controversy with those who have deliberately 
adopted the view that the Christian dispensation 
is a kind of interlude between the Lord’s lifetime 
upon earth, and a future earthly reign, meanwhile 
bearing witness in His name: a witness for the 
conversion of a few, and the condemnation of the 
many. We leave them with the praise of being 
perfectly consistent, in expecting small results 
from the preaching of the Gospel; and with the 
responsibility of looking on that Gospel in a light 
which warrants little faith. 

We deal with those who regard the Gospel as 
bona fide “ good news” for every creature—“ good 
news” which those who heard it before me were 
bound to tell to me—‘‘ good news” which I am 
bound to tell to every creature living, according to 
the extent of my opportunities—“ good news” to 
the effect that “the grace of God, which bringeth 
salvation to all men, hath appeared ’’—news which 
could not be told to me as good, if it left any 
doubt whether it was or was not for me—“ good 
news” to every creature, “ A Gospel for thee.” 

We take the first two announcements by a 
preacher under the Christian dispensation, to 
audiences of sinners, as intended for our instruc- 
tion and imitation: “Repent, and be baptized 
EVERY ONE OF YOU, in the name of Jesus Christ, 


336 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


for the remission ofsins;” “God having raised up 
His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning 
away EVERY ONE oF you from his iniquities.” 
Declarations less direct, personal, or comprehen- 
sive than these, we have no manner of authority 
to deliver. Weare to “command all men every- 
where to repent,’ to call upon every one of them 
to believe, to assure every one of them that Christ 
is “sent to bless him in turning him away from 
his iniquities.”’ 

Nor are we to make such proclamations under 
the feeling that, although it is our duty to do it, 
there is no intention on the part of God to second 
our testimony and give it effect. Hope in the re- 
sult sustained the Apostle in his work, according 
to his own avowal; for he says, “Therefore we 
both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in 
the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, 
specially those that believe.” This trust in the 
God and Saviour of all was enough to animate any 
man in labor and under reproach; and such a trust 
we should never cast away. 

The question, whether or not the conversions of 
the first ages ought to be looked back to by us, as 
a standard at which to aim, is settled by one of 
the passages already quoted. After joyfully de- 
scribing the conversion of the Church in Ephesus, 
where “the word of the Lord”’ so “ mightily grew 
and prevailed,” St. Paul says, that God has done 


PRACTICAL LESSONS B07 


this, “THAT IN THE AGES TO COME HE MIGHT SHOW 
THE EXCEEDING RICHES OF His GRACE, in His kind- 
ness toward us through Jesus Christ.” Weare liv- 
ing in what were, then, ‘the agestocome.”” On us 
the light of those “exceeding riches of grace”’ is 
shining—shining for our encouragement—shining 
that we may believe that in heathen cities, where 
great Dianas are adored, we also shall see “the 
word of God mightily grow and prevail,” heathen 
rites abandoned, bad books consumed, and the 
craft of idol-makers destroyed. 

While this collective number of conversions is 
given to us as an encouragement, the most remark- 
able of all individual conversions is placed before 
us in the same light. ‘“‘ Howbeit,” says St. Paul, 
“for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first 
Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, 
for a pattern to them which should hereafter be- 
heve on Him to life everlasting.” Thus we are 
deliberately forewarned to take the most singular 
conversion that ever occurred in the early Church, 
not asa discouragement because of its specialty, 
but as an intentional manifestation of the wonder- 
ful grace of the Redeemer, by which every sinner, 
in all ages, who would fain “find mercy,” may 
encourage himself. The persecutor Paul, con- 
verted and forgiven, is for a pattern to individual 
believers in “ the ages to come.” The great multi- 
tude of “children of wrath” in Ephesus, who 


338 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


‘ 


were made to “sit in heavenly places in Jesus 
Christ,’ are also to us, of ‘the ages to come,” a 
pattern of the “exceeding riches of grace.” 
Whether our faith be tried in respect to the possi- 
bility of the conversion of an individual as un- 
likely as Saul, or of a number as great as the 
Church of Ephesus, in either case we should be- 
lieve that the ancient grace is free and mighty this 
day. Thus trusting in “God, who is the Saviour 
of all men,’’ we shall both cheerfully “labor and 
suffer reproach.” 

The same relation which we have shown to exist 
between hope and labor, is also pointed out to us, 
as existing between hope and prayer. “I exhort, 
therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, 
intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for 
all men.’’ Here no one doubts that we are liter- 
ally commanded to pray for every human being; 
but if we did not carefully attend to the context, 
we might run away with a vague idea that we were 
only to pray as an expression of good-will, and that 
for temporal and national blessings, especially as 
allusion is made to “kings, and all that are in au- 
thority; ’’—that, in fact, the “ prayers and suppli- 
cations, and intercessions, and giving of thanks, 
for all men,” do not mean that we are to pray, 
supplicate, and intercede, that all men may be 
saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; 
for that would only be asking what God wills should 


— 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 339 


never be, and, therefore, what could not be ac- 
ceptable to Him. But, as if expressly to antici- 
pate this unbelief, the Apostle adds, ‘‘ For this is 
good and acceptable in the sight of God our 
Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and 
to come unto-the knowledge of the truth. For 
there is one God, and one Mediator between God 
and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Him- 
self a ransom for all, a testimony in due time.”’ 
Here our encouragement in prayer, supplication, 
and intercession for all men, is grounded first on 
the clear declaration that such prayer is “‘ good and 
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour ’’—“ our 
Saviour” giving intensity to the expression, as if 
reminding us that He who has saved us, must be 
one to Whom it is good and acceptable, that we 
should seek the salvation of all. It is further 
grounded on the express declaration of His will 
regarding others, that He “will have them to be 
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the 
truth.”” Here is not only the assurance that we 
are right in praying that they may be saved, but 
right in praying that the truth may be brought 
to all, and that they may be saved through its in- 
strumentality; praying, in fact, for the universal 
diffusion of Christ’s Gospel, and the universal 
salvation of men in consequence. It is further 
supported on the ground of the unity of God, the 
unity of the Mediator between God and men, and 


340 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the unity of man as regarded by His mediating 
atonement: ‘“ One God, and one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Him- 
self a ransom for all, a testimony in due time.” * 
We have, then, the clear example of the first 
preachers, the express declaration that the early 
conversions were as a pattern for the ages to come, 
the statement that trust in God as the Saviour of 
all men was the animating strength under apostolic 
toil and shame, the command to pray for all, and 
the most formally stated warrant for such prayers 
boldly to lay hold upon the promises of God. 
Many who will admit that the scriptural argu- 
ment points in this direction, yet, looking at hu- 
man nature, the present condition of mankind, 
the proportion of Christian agency to population, 
and the past career of man, will, on the whole, 
conclude that the conversion of the world is not 
to be expected. They will also ask us how we can 
reconcile such an expectation with the free agency 
of man. We will no further answer them than 
by recalling the fact that every additional conver- 
sion to some extent, however slight, changes the 
condition of society, and, in so doing, affects the 
motives which act upon the unconverted, throwing 
a greater weight upon the side of goodness. A 
few more decided advances on the part of the 


* We give the marginal reading, which is a literal transla- 
tion; the other is, “to be testified in due time.” 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 341 


Church, in some countries of Christendom, would 
cast a preponderating weight of social motives on 
the side of godliness, leaving little to be contended 
against but the natural depravity of man’s heart, 
which, even in the purest condition of society, 
would be enough to demand the most zealous care 
for the conversion of each human being. 

This bears first on the general question of nat- 
ural motives, next on the particular one as to rec- 
onciling faith, for the general regeneration of 
men, with their free agency. We readily admit, 
that logically we cannot reconcile them, and cer- 
tainly we are not anxious to attempt it. All the 
difficulties which meet us in soberly expecting the 
conversion of the entire world, equally meet us in 
soberly expecting the conversion of an entire 
family. Every question of free agency, motives, 
human nature, past experience, which enters into 
the one, enters into the other, though on a smaller 
scale. Butit is only the scale that differs, the 
elements are the same. Yet who that has felt the 
faith and love of Christ within him, and has kin- 
dred dear to his own heart, has not again and 
again pleaded that they might all appear, “no 
wanderer lost, a family in heaven”? Who does 
not feel that to exercise faith that such a prayer 
shall be answered, is good and wise, and acceptable 
to God? In fact, all the difficulty exists as to 
faith for the conversion of any one individual. 


342 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


The difference between preaching the Gospel 
with a full expectation of doing no more than say- 
ing small companies of saints from amidst multi- 
tudes of sinners, on whose shipwreck no influence 
is to be exercised beyond holding them a light to 
sink by, and of looking upon every converted man 
as one rescued from a common danger, who is im- 
mediately to join in rescuing the rest—is such, 
that in the one case, when a little is accomplished, 
it is looked upon as what the Gospel was sent to 
do; while, in the other case, every little is taken 
as but an earnest of the great, and the great as an 
earnest of the universal. While we aim at few, 
we shall win but few; for, that our successes shall 
take their proportions from our faith is the uni- 
versal law of the service of Christ. 

Should we be wrong in our views—should it be 
contrary to the design of our Lord to convert all 
our race by the preaching of His word, and the 
outpouring of His Spirit—should it be His pur- 
pose to leave the earth much as it is until He 
concludes its mournful story in thunder-claps of 
judgment—should that consummation be nigh, 
and the last trumpet be already beginning to fill 
with the breath of the archangel, yet surely, if 
we, under the illusion of our belief, are found 
panting, praying, laboring, if by any means we 
might save some, that blast might cause us a pang 
for the multitudes whom it found unwarned; but 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 343 


no pang because we had been busy in warning, 
exhorting, entreating; no pang because we had 
done so in faith that our Lord willed all men to 
come to the knowledge of the truth. 

Suppose, on the other hand, that there is even 
a possibility of our being right, that the grace of 
God which has appeared to us really is “ good 
tidings”’ for every creature; that the truth so 
precious to our nation and to our own souls is not 
decreed away from any part of the human family 
by the great Saviour above us; that He does mean 
that literally every creature should hear it from 
the lips of His servants, that literally the whole 
earth should be filled with the knowledge of the 
Lord, that literally “the ages to come”’ should 
take the early conversions as the type of their ex- 
pectations, and should embrace all men in their 
supplications and their labors-—should all this be 
true, and we spend our strength in observing the 
clouds, and the judgments, and the trumpets, tell- 
ing those who are calling the nations that they 
may call, but they will accomplish lttle thereby— 
as far as in us lies, stealing the nerve from their 
arm and the fire from their voice; should we in 
the midst of this die, and find “ages to come” 
yet advancing, then, perhaps, we might feel, as if 
the Scripture had been neglected by us, which 
says, ‘“ He that observeth the wind shall not sow, 
and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” 


344 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


Futurity, judgments, and providential designs, 
lie within the unshared province of God; and none 
need make it his chief concern to settle or to as- 
certain them. A world of sinning and suffering 
_ men, each one of them my own brother, calls on 
me for work, work, work. I may trust the future, 
and the time of restoring Israel, to better hands 
than mine. 


V.—Let us Up and be Doing. 


In hope, or without hope, let us up and be 
doing. Encouragements are on every hand, and 
so are menaces. The enlightened, the true, the 
zealous, are many; the wicked and the slothful 
are fearfully more. The number of the former 
has been growing by conversions, the number of 
the latter growing faster by the natural increase 
of population. The appliances for Christian prop- 
agation are vast; the faith of many in their 
efficacy feeble. The doctrines of Christianity are 
known and prized by multitudes who never knew 
them before; but, on the other hand, there are few 
of the Churches in the very heart of which those 
doctrines are not betrayed. One would rob us of 
the incarnation of God, another of the Spirit of 
God, another of an atonement, another of provi- 
dence, another of prayer, some of regenerating 
grace, some of ministerial unction, some of primi- 
tive fervor, some of a Lord’s day; some would 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 345 


launch us on a sea of thought without an inspired 
guide; others on a moral universe without punish- 
ment for wrong; thus nearly every truth that dis- 
tinguishes the system of Christianity from earthly 
inventions, is attacked by mining or by battery. 
We are not sure but truth is sometimes spoken 
when little good ensues; we are sure that error is 
never issued into the world without doing harm; 
and there are strong men now doing work over 
which, unless others, made stronger by the might 
of God, undo it, generations to come will have 
reason to weep. For all who cannot bear to see 
the Cross betrayed, the Holy Ghost grieved, the 
oracles of God degraded, the work of the Spirit in 
the human soul reduced to a process of motives 
and emotions, and every Divine tie that connects 
us, as a redeemed race, with a redeeming Father, 
skilfully cut asunder—for those who are not pre- 
pared to see the Churches of England and America 
pass through blights such as have befallen the 
Churches of Switzerland, Germany, and other 
Protestant regions of the Continent, this is a mo- 
ment when the air seems full of trumpet-notes, 
when every step taken on doctrinal ground raises 
the echo of warning. And, alas! many who dog- 
matically repel error, evaporate in intellectual- 
ism; others decay, under a silvered mildew of re- 
spectability; and others, professing to seek the old 
Christianity, content themselves with garnishing 


346 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


the sepulchre in which the Middle Ages buried 
her, instead of seeking that her first preachers, in 
the persons of other men, but in the “spirit and 
power” of Peters and Pauls, should be raised up 
once more! 

We will bless every laborer, for any service done 
toward the maintenance and advance of the truth, 
for every good word spoken, every sound argument 
uttered from the pulpit, every page of evangelical 
truth written, and every rebuke administered in 
any way to those who would falsify our faith; but, 
let them be assured that more than all other 
services, turning many away from iniquity will 
counterwork and confound attempts to reduce 
Christianity from a Divine to a human system. 
This is the practical answer to difficulties and ob- 
jections. Let us only have multitudes of new- 
born Christians, fervent in faith and hope, full 
of love and of good works, and rationalists may 
account for the phenomenon as they will; but the 
common conscience of mankind will feel that God 
isinit. “ Beholding the man which was healed 
standing with them, they could say nothing 
against it.” 

The one reason for being zealous for Christian 
doctrine which so far surpasses all others that be- 
side it they become as nothing, is that given by 
St. Paul to Timothy: “Take heed unto thyself, 
and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 347 


doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them 
that hear thee.”” What a motive! Saving, first, 
ourselves—then, those that hear us: the sublime 
can go no further! Here we have set before our 
hearts, soliciting us onward, motives which we 
acknowledge have already moved the very heart of 
the Godhead. To save! as an instrument, it is 
true; but O, how infinitely glorious, even as an 
instrument, to save! and that, not only ourselves, 
but others! While, on the one hand, guarding 
“the doctrine” is the only means of retaining 
saving power in the Church; on the other, no 
guard upon the doctrine will ever be effectual un- 
less we can raise up a succession of saved men. 
Creeds, Catechisms, Confessions, are not to be 
treated as is now the fashion in many quarters 
to treat them; but, when kept in their proper 
place, as human and fallible, and strong only 
when they accord with God’s holy oracles, have a 
high utility. But the idea of relying upon these 
for conserving the truth in any Church, is as well- 
founded as would be the idea of relying on a good 
military code for defending a nation. An army 
of cowards would interpret any code down to their 
own level, and Churches of unconverted men will 
equally lower any confession of faith. For rescu- 
ing souls, for rebuking blasphemy, for building 
up God’s holy Church, for glorifying the Saviour’s 


name on earth, for our own joy and crown of re- 
24 


348 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


joicing, for the bliss of covering a multitude of 
sins, for the eternal delight of having saved a soul 
from death, let us aim at one work—bringing sin- 
ners from darkness to light. Of all the records of 
praise which our merciful Lord will give His sery- 
ants, who would not most covet that his record 
should be—" The law of truth was in his mouth, 
and iniquity was not found in hislips. He walked 
with Me in peace and equity, AND DID TURN MANY 
AWAY FROM INIQUITY”? 

Ye that are lights and fathers in the ministry, 
whose very name is a power, whose tone decides 
that of many young evangelists, whose standard 
of faith and success regulates the practical ex- 
pectations of many humble Christians—O, show 
us the way to victory, lead us to downright con- 
quests over this cold and sinful world! What 
if, ere ye go hence, ye should leave to your suc- 
cessors a glorious tradition of multitudes broken 
under the power of the word, of notorious sinners 
suddenly transformed into bright examples of 
grace, of throngs of inquirers asking the way to 
heaven with tears, of Churches once dying easily 
roused, through your instrumentality, to apostolic 
zeal? If ye but leave behind you such traditions 
to be told, and told again, to children, and to 
children’s children, your “tongue of fire” will be 
multiplying itself in the homesteads of your people, 
when your voice has long been silent, and the 


PRACTICAL LESSONS 349 


fruit of your labor will go on propagating itself, 
until the trump of the archangel sounds. 

Ye who are but entering on the work of the 
ministry, or are as yet young in its ranks, choose, 
among all those who have gone before you, whose 
fame you would prefer. ‘ake the host of those 
who have trifled with the Cross, with inspiration, 
with the fall and the redemption ot man, with 
the work of the Spirit, or any of the other vital 
doctrines of our religion; and if you find among 
them one man whose name, after ages, is dear to 
a nation, sacred in the homesteads of thousands 
to whose ancestors he was a blessing—then follow 
him. If you find among those who gave them- 
selves to intellectual pleasures, and were above 
the plain rough work of revivals and awakenings, 
one who has left a memory which is to this day 
blessed, raising up even now spiritual children to 
perpetuate his fruits to other generations—you 
may follow him. But surely you would never 
think of following in the track of those whose 
labors have been succeeded by a blight, or whose 
names, if remembered at all, are remembered, not 
as a blessing to the world, but simply as an example 
of talent? Surely you would wish rather to be 
one of those whom grandsires shall speak of, to 
their grandchildren, as having been the means of 
saving such a man, of kindling such a revival, of 
introducing a new religious era into the history 


350 THE TONGUE OF FIRE 


of such a village, or of first carrying the Gospel to 
some people, to whom Christ was a stranger? 
You will find that all those upon whose memories 
the blessings of living men rest, were those who 
most gave themselves to accomplish the salvation 
of sinners, who glorified in the Cross, who trusted 
in the Holy Ghost, and who, whether their tongue 
was that of a Boanerges, or that of a Barnabas, 
ever took care, by solitary waiting before the Re- 
deemer’s throne, to have it so imbued with the 
Holy Ghost, that it was, at least, a“ tongue of fire.” 


We do not feel that we have said what we had 
to say. In looking over this little book, we can 
hardly believe that it is all that the feelings and 
thoughts with which we began it have produced. 
But, such as it is, let it go out to the world, to 
be rebuked where it errs, to be unheeded where it 
is feeble, to be blessed where it is true and strong. 

And now, adorable Spirit, proceeding from the 
Father and the Son, descend upon all the Churches, 
renew the Pentecost in this our age, and baptize 
Thy people generally—O, baptize them yet again 
with tongues of fire! Crown this nineteenth cen- 
tury with a revival of “pure and undefiled re- 
ligion” greater than that of the last century, 
greater than that of the first, greater than any 
“ demonstration of the Spirit’ ever yet vouchsafed 
to men! 


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THE FRANCONIA STORIES. By Jacop Aspotr, Matte- 
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